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Romantic Castles and Palaces 



i 



Romantic 

Castles and Palaces 

As Seen and Described 
by Famous Writers 

EDITED AND TRANSLATED 

By ESTHER SINGLETON 

AUTHOR OF " TURRETS, TOWERS AND TEMPLES," " GREAT PICTURES," 
" WONDERS OF NATURE," " PARIS," AND " A GUIDE TO THE OPERA," 
AND TRANSLATOR OF " THE MUSIC DRAMAS OF RICHARD WAGNER " 

With Numerous Illustrations 



<9|« 



NEW YORK 

DODD, MEAD & COMPANY 
1901 
\_- 



THE LIBRARY OF 

CONGRESS, 
Two CoHiis Received 

OCT. 9 t90t 

ftCOPVRIQHT ENTRY 

CLASS R^XXa No. 
COPY B. 



A 



<J 



5 



& 



Copyright, igoi 
By Dodd, Mead & Company 



First edition, published October, igoi. 



Preface 



IN making a selection from the large number of castles 
and palaces that might be included, I have endeav- 
oured to choose those that would appeal equally to the 
lovers of fine architecture and to the lovers of history and 
legend. 

There is probably no class of buildings that engages the 
interest of so many different minds as the castle. To the 
architect, such strongholds as Conway, Warwick, Arundel, 
Lambeth, Blois, Caernavon, Kronborg, Windsor, Urbino, 
Berkeley, Amboise, Loches, etc., etc., are valuable studies. 
For example, Conway, half castle, half palace, contains 
Early Decorated architecture in Queen Eleanor's Oratory 
and fine, lancet windows ; the donjon of Arundel dates 
from the days of King Alfred ; Warwick, one of the few 
mediaeval fortresses that has lasted unchanged from the 
time of William the Conqueror to that of King Edward 
VII., shows us what Kenilworth and the other baronial 
castles of England were like ; the feudal stronghold of 
Berkeley has also preserved its ancient appearance through 
seven centuries ; Windsor retains its Norman Keep and 
affords a splendid example of the dwelling-place of royalty ; 
the mediaeval fortress of Amboise with its Flamboyant 
Gothic chapel displays a wonderful contrast of styles ; and 



VI 



PREFACE 



at Blois four periods of architecture may be contemplated 
side by side. Turning to palaces, it is sufficient merely to 
name the Ducal Palace, the Alhambra, Hampton Court 
Palace, Fontainebleau, Chenonceaux, Futtehpore-Sikri, and 
the Palace of Shah Jehan to recall the wealth that exists in 
such vast volumes of art and architecture. The Mikado's 
Palace, and the Summer Palace at Pekin transport us into 
another and mysterious vv'orld, appealing strongly to our 
imagination. 

The castle was built for defence as well as for a dwell- 
ing-place ; the palace, generally speaking, is the abode of 
monarchs or nobles ; and as both have been the scene of 
plots, imprisonments, murders, entertainments, love-mak- 
ing, marriages, births and deaths, their walls enclose in- 
numerable memories of history and legend. As the most 
brilliant displays of human pleasure and the blackest mani- 
festations of human conduct have occurred in their halls, 
towers and dungeons, the phantoms of the most striking 
characters in history hover amid their crumbling and ivy- 
clad stones. 

In every castle there are one or two characters, events, 
or legends that dominate all the others. For instance, in 
the Vaults of Kronborg Holger Danske (Ogier le Danois, 
beloved of Morgan le Fay) sleeps ; but the better-remem- 
bered legend is that of the pale ghost that walks the plat- 
form at Elsinore in the nipping and eager air of midnight. 
Glamis is the supposed scene of Macbeth's murder of 
Duncan ; Warwick is associated with the legendary Guy, 
the Wars of the Roses and the great Earl, the " King- 



PREFACE vii 

Maker;" Linlithgow is rich in Stuart memories, — it was 
the birthplace of Mary Queen of Scots ; Caernavon was the 
birthplace of the first Prince of Wales; Raby was the 
home of the famous Nevilles ; Harry Hotspur dwelt at 
Alnwick; the shadow of Louis XL darkens Plessis-les- 
Tours ; Wyclif, Stephen Langton and the Lollards cling to 
Lambeth ; Futtehpore-Sikri recalls the splendours of the 
great Akbar ; Wolsey dominates Hampton Court Palace ; 
Catherine de'Medici presides over Chaumont ; Charles 
VIL, Joan of Arc and Agnes Sorel may be evoked at 
Chinon ; Berkeley was the scene of the murder of Ed- 
ward n. ; Agnes Sorel is again at Loches ; Francois L, 
Henri IV. and Diane de Poictiers haunt Fontainebleau ; 
the Riccardi is filled with Medici crimes ; the sombre 
Vecchio holds memories of the brilliant and wicked Cosmo 
L ; and as the entire history of Florence may be read in 
the walls of the latter palace, so all the events and phases 
of Venetian story are centred in the Ducal Palace. 
Chenonceaux, " the fairy palace of Armida," and Kensing- 
ton are exceptional in containing no stains of blood. 
Leigh Hunt aptly remarks : " Windsor Castle is a place to 
receive monarchs in ; Buckingham Palace, to see fashions 
in ; Kensington Palace a place to drink tea in," exhibit- 
ing " the domestic side of royalty." Its gardens, however, 
call up all the fashion, beauty and wit of the Eighteenth 
Century. 

We may suggest to the lovers of beautiful scenery 
that the pleasure they experience is often largely due to the 
presence of the castle in the landscape ; and we may re- 



viii PREFACE 

mind him, what an important feature Turner made of the 
castle in his paintings. Sometimes, indeed, he went so far 
as to introduce one when his artistic feeling told him that a 
peak or crag was incomplete without its embattled towers. 
What would the rock of Edinburgh be without " Auld 
Reekie," or the parks of Arundel, Berkeley, or Alnwick 
without their grey towers seen through vistas framed in 
foliage ? The Wartburg in the Thuringer Forest, and 
Stirling and Conway, surrounded by the mountains of Scot- 
land and Wales, are also notable examples of the aid of the 
castle in completing the picturesque effect of the landscape. 

The translations have been made especially for this 
book ; and in order to give as much continuous history of 
each building as possible, I have sometimes been compelled 
to cut. Otherwise, the essays remain unchanged. 

My thanks are extended to Messrs. Houghton, Mifflin 
& Co. for their kind permission to reprint the selections 
from Hawthorne. 

E. S. 

New York, August, igoi. 



Contents 

Conway Castle ..... I 

Grant Allen. 

The Ducal Palace ..... 8 

Theophile Gautier. 

Palace of Linlithgow . . . .21 

Sir \^"alter Scott. 



Arundel Castle 

Alice Mevnell. 

Palazzo Vecchio 

Alexandre Dumas. 



Chateau de Blois 

Jules Loiseleur. 

Futtehpore-Sikri 

Louis Rousselet. 



32 



41 



Kensington Palace . . . . .51 

Leigh Hunt, 

The Mikado's Palace . . . .61 

Pierre Loti 

Warwick Castle . . . . .68 

Lady Warwick. 

The Alhambra . . . . .78 

Edmondo De Amicis. 

Lambeth Palace . . . . .89 

John Richard Green. 



99 
105 



X 



CONTENTS 



Caernavon Castle . . . , .115 

William Howitt. 

A Ball at the Winter Palace . . .124 

Theophile Gautier. 

fontainebleau . . . . • '33 

Grant Allen. 

The Riccardi Palace ..... 143 
Alexandre Dumas. 

Raby Castle . . . . . • '53 

William Howitt. 

Castle del Monte ..... 162 
I. Edward Lear. 
II. Henry Swinburne. 

The Generalife . . . . .169 

Theophile Gautier. 

Chateau de Chenonceaux . . . .174 

Jules Loiseleur. 

Dublin Castle . . . . .179 

Lady Wilde. 

Sans Souci and Other Prussian Palaces . .183 

William Howitt. 

Whitehall Palace . . . . .190 

Leigh Hunt. 

The Castle of Kronborg . . . .199 

Horace Marryat. 

Chaumont sur Loire . . . . .210 

Jules Loiseleur. 

Windsor Castle . . . . 217 

The Marquis of Lorne. 



CONTENTS xi 

The Palace of Urbino . . . .226 

John Addixgton Symonds. 

ALxvncK Castle ..... 236 

CrXHBERT BeDE. 

The Palace of Saixt-Cloud .... 245 

1. y. BOURRASSEE. 

Stirling Castle . . . . .254 

Xathaxiel Hawthorne. 

The Palace of the Bosphorus . . .259 

Theophile Gautier. 

Plessis-les-Tours ..... 267 

T. T. Bourrassee. 



Hampton Court Palace 

Ernest Law. 



■/5 



The Palace of Shah Jehan . . . .285 

Bholanauth Chl'xder. 

Edinburgh Castle ..... 295 

I. Robert Louis Stevenson. 
11. James Norris Brewer. 

Lambton Castle ..... 304 

William Howttt. 

Aranjuez . . . . . .310 

Edmondo De Amicis. 

Glamis Castle . , . . .314 

Lady Glamis. 

Chateau de Chinon . . . . .321 

J. J. Bourrassee. 

The Summer Palace . . . . ■ .329 

Maurice Paleologue. 



xii CONTENTS 

Berkeley Castle ..... 337 

Arthur Shadwell Martin. 

The Castle of Chillon . . . , 346 

Nathaniel Hawthorne. 

RoccA Malatestiana . . . . .354 

Charles Yriarte. 

The Wartburg ..... 360 

l, puttich. 

Chateau d'Amboise ..... 367 
Jules Loiseleur. 

Blarney Castle ..... 375 

Mr. and Mrs. S. C. Hall. 

Chateau de Loches ..... 380 
J. J. Bourrassee. 



The Palace of Blenheim 

Nathaniel Hawthorne. 



390 



Illustrations 



Conway Castle Wales 

The Ducal Palace Italy . 

Palace of Linlithgow .... Scotland 

Arundel Castle England 

Palazzo Vecchio Italy . 

Kensington Palace England 

The Mikado's Palace .... Japan 

Warwick Castle . . . . . . England 

The Alhambra Spain 

Lambeth Palace England 

Chateau de Blois . . . . . Era?ice 

FuTTEHPORE-SiKRi India 

Caernavon Castle Wales 

Winter Palace . . . . . . Russia 

Fontainebleau ....... France 

The Riccardi Palace Italy . 

Raby Castle England 

Castel del Monte Sicily 

The Generalife Spain 

Chateau de Chenonceaux . . . France 

Dublin Castle Ireland 

Sans Souci Germany 

Whitehall Palace England 

The Castle of Kronborg . . . Denmark 

Chaumont sur Loire France . 

Windsor Castle England 

The Palace of Urbino .... Italy . . 

Alnwick Castle England 



Frontispiece 

FACING PAGE 

8 

21 

32 

41 

51 
61 

68 

78 



99 

115 
124 

^ZZ 
143 
153 
162 
169 

174 
179 
183 
190 
199 
210 
217 
226 
236 



XIV 



ILLUSTRATIONS 



The Palace of Saint-Cloud . . France 

Stirling Castle Scotland 

The Palace of the Bosphorus . Turkey 

Plessis-les-Tours Frajice 

Hampton Court Palace . . . England 

The Palace of Shah Jehan . . India 

Edinburgh Castle Scotlajid 

Lambton Castle England 

Aranjuez Spain 

Glamis Castle Scotland 

Chateau de Chinon France 

The Summer Palace China 

Berkeley Castle England 

The Castle of Chillon .... Switzerland 

RoccA Malatestiana Italy . 

The Wartburg Germany 

Chateau d'Amboise Frajice . 

Blarney Castle Ireland . 

Chateau de Loches France . 

The Palace of Blenheim . . . England 



245 
254 
259 
267 

275 
2S5 

295 
304 
310 

314 
321 

329 
337 
346 

354 
360 

367 

375 
380 

390 



Castles and Palaces 



CONWAY CASTLE 

GRANT ALLEN 



TO call the town at the mouth of the Conway plain 
Conway is as absurd as if we were to call the town 
at the mouth of the Tyne plain Tyne instead of Tyne- 
mouth. 

By whatever name we call it, however, Conway town 
itself is equally interesting and equally beautiful. It still 
presents perhaps the best specimen yet remaining in Britain 
of a mediaeval borough, begirt to this day with its Thir- 
teenth Century walls, and overlooked by the towers of its 
strong castle-fortress. Even Telford's graceful suspension- 
bridge, in admirable harmony of tone and plan with the 
surrounding buildings, hardly detracts at all from the old- 
world character of the familiar scene ; nay, I am not cure 
that it does not even add somewhat to its picturesqueness. 
As much cannot be said for the huge iron boxes of Stephen- 
son's tubular bridge which carries the London and North- 
Western line across the river on its way to Holyhead. 



2 CONWAY CASTLE 

But taken as a whole, the mouth of the Conway, with its 
town and castle, has hardly an equal perhaps in Britain, 
save the mouth of the Dart in the equally Celtic Devonian 
uplands. 

Yet to the Welshman, the towers of Conway, beautiful 
as they are from every point of view, must long have 
seemed a badge of servitude. We forp-et too often in look- 
ing at these picturesque relics of the lawless days how stern 
and business-like they must once have appeared, how sug- 
gestive of none but purely military and aggressive associa- 
tions. Time has softened the murderous effect of keep and 
bastion, and left us nothing but the graceful tinge of poetic 
medisevalism. But when Edward I. impressed into his 
service the unpaid labour of the conquered Welsh to raise 
his great castles around the disaffected mountain land, he 
did it with the distinct and deliberate purpose of holding in 
check for the future all wild aspirations of the native race 
after Cymric independence. The great triangle formed by 
the three strong castles of Harlech, Caernavon, and Con- 
way (like the famous Austrian quadrilateral in North Italy) 
was a standing menace to the national movement and an 
effectual curb upon the national desire to rise in revolt. 
The three proud strongholds occupy the keys to the three 
chief routes into the heart of Snowdonia. Harlech blocks 
the way by the Vale of Festiniog or the Pass of Aber- 
glaslyn : Caernavon guards the bare ravine of Llanberis : 
Conway frowns down upon the Bettws road and stops the 
coast path by Penmaenmawr and Bangor. Dominated and 
daunted by these three imposing fortresses, so vastly supe- 



CONWAY CASTLE 3 

rior in design and construction to the little tower keeps of 
her native princelings, the mountain heart of Gwynedd lay 
still for centuries, only galvanized for a moment once into 
spasmodic life, during the troublous times of civil commo- 
tion in England, by the adventurous spirit of that Deeside 
chief whose name Englishmen travesty into Owen Glen- 
dower. 

Nowhere is the genius of Edward's great architect, 
Henry of Elreton, more conspicuous than in this noble pile 
at Conway. Half castle, half palace — for Edward meant 
to be king as well as conqueror — it combined the military 
solidity of Anglo-Norman work with the domestic magnifi- 
cence of later Tudor mansions. Its great hall, in particu- 
lar, must have formed, when perfect, one of the most regal 
and splendid reception rooms then existing in any part of 
England. The remaining lancet windows of the royal 
private apartments, and the beautiful early-decorated work- 
manship of Queen Eleanor's oratory, survive to show with 
what royal state Edward kept his court both here and at 
Caernavon. For it is quite a mistake to regard the great- 
est of Plantagenets as a mere savage conqueror — the " ruth- 
less king " of Gray's immortal calumny. If Edward re- 
pressed sternly, he meant to reign peacefully. The " mas- 
sacre of the bards " and all the other poetical rubbish with 
which Welsh legend has clouded the history of the national 
defeat, must be relegated to the limbo of exploded fable. 
The plain truth is that, when once Llewelyn and Dafydd 
were dead, Edward's whole policy in the Welsh question 
was a policy of conciliation. His object was to pacify and 



4 CONWAY CASTLE 

Anglicize the disaffected uplands, to make communica- 
tions safe through what had once been the stronghold of 
Taffy, that typical robber outlaw, and to reorganize the 
broken Celtic community on the familiar model of the 
English kingdom. It was not in mere play, therefore, that 
he presented to the Welsh his own eldest son, born by de- 
liberate arrangement an indigenous Welshman in Caernavon 
Castle, as the first Prince of Wales of a new and more 
powerful line, or that he built and decorated those great 
royal reception rooms in his Cambrian palaces, where the 
chieftains of Gwynedd and the rude lords of Anglesey 
might for the first time see and be duly impressed by the 
splendour and the glitter of Anglo-Norman chivalry. 

Viewed from this wider standpoint, the beautiful chain- 
bridge and the ugly boxes of Stephenson's iron monstrosity 
are themselves in a certain sort the direct heirs and truest 
modern representatives of Edward's wise and necessary 
policy. So seen, they cease to interfere with the unity of 
the view and merge into one with the great Plantagenet 
design of the palace-castle. For both these important 
works, with their still vaster and more wonderful sister- 
bridges over the Menai at Bangor, form to this day the 
outer and visible sign of that coalescence of the Celtic and 
Teutonic elements in Britain to which Edward devoted all 
his life and energy. The first great roads made by the first 
great road-makers in England were the roads that connected 
London, the centre of the empire, with the Irish packets 
at Holyhead; and both those roads, whether coastwise or 
internal, by Glan Ogwen or Penmaenmawr, led through 



CONWAY CASTLE 5 

the wildest parts of Wild Wales. The greatest life task 
of the greatest engineer before the railway period — Telford 
— was the Holyhead road : the greatest life task of the 
inventor of the locomotive and his still abler sons — George 
and Robert Stephenson — was the iron line from London to 
Holyhead. In these gigantic undertakings, Celt and Saxon 
were united for all, and the better day of fraternal friend- 
ship was inaugurated in full sight of Edward's threatening 
castle towers. Dr. Arnold loved to look at the railway 
engine, snorting steam across the midland acres, and think 
that feudalism was dead forever. It is pleasant in like 
manner to look even at Stephenson's hideous tubular bridge, 
and think, that ill as it contrasts in beauty with the 
Plantagenet turrets, it is nevertheless the symbol of that 
complete fellowship between Saxon and Celt in this land of 
Britain which forms the final goal and ideal of our national 
unity. 

The vale of Conway does not stop abruptly at Conway 
town ; it prolongs itself seaward by gentle degrees far into 
the shallow waters of Beaumaris Bay. On either side lie 
the wide tidal sandbanks, formed of material which the 
river has washed down from the peaks of Snowdon, 
Glyder, and the Carnedds, the very source from which 
they are derived being often traceable in the mineralogical 
peculiarities of the individual grains. About these sands 
the weird and melancholy Celtic fancy has woven a 
variation on the common mournful Celtic legend of the 
submerged country — the legend which meets us again under 
a hundred disguises in the story of Sythenin Cardigan Bay, 



6 CONWAY CASTLE 

the floods of Sarn Badrig, the lost land of Lyonesse, and 
the sunken city of Is on the coasts of Brittany. 

Wherever the Cymric Celt remains, there these stories 
survive and accompany him. Perhaps they may inclose 
some true kernel of tradition about the terrific submergence 
which undoubtedly once took place round the coasts of the 
two Britains — the greater and the less — at the period when the 
forest-bed of post-glacial date was swallowed up by the 
devouring Atlantic. It seemed more probable, however, 
and it is certainly far more comforting to believe that the 
vast earth-movement took place so quietly, and was spread 
over so many peaceful centuries, that it was no more 
recognized by the men who lived during its gradual 
progress than the slow and gradual submergence of 
Scandinavia — an inch at a time — is noticed in our own 
day by the Norwegian peasant. Rather do these stories 
reflect and embody the gloomy fancy of a conquered 
people, whose traditions of glory all referred to a remote and 
unreal past, and who felt in their despair that the very 
elements themselves had wrested from them those fertile 
lands which their fathers had never really owned or 
cultivated. 

Be this as it may, local legend declares that the Lavan 
sands — the very name in Welsh means Banks of Lamenta- 
tion — represent the relics of a rich lowland hundred, en- 
gulfed by the sea at one wild swoop in the early part of the 
Middle Ages. About a fathom deep, off Y Foel Llus, lies 
a submarine bank still known as Llys Helig, or Helig's 
Palace. Here, according to tradition, stood the lofty 



CONWAY CASTLE n 

castle of the Cymric lord who owned for miles around the 
fertile plain ; and Welsh imagination still sees at low tide 
through the clear water of the bay the boundary stones of 
the ancient road that passed from the British stronghold at 
Rhuddlan to the fortress of Treganwy, now equally over- 
whelmed beneath the sands of Beaumaris. It is a little un- 
fortunate for the truth of the tale that similar evidences 
of historical verity are always produced in favour of Caer 
Is and all the other Celtic buried cities — and that no Saxon 
eye has ever clearly beheld them. 



THE DUCAL PALACE 

THEOPHILE GAUTIER 

THE Ducal Palace as we see it to-day dates from 
Marino Faliero and is the successor of an older one 
begun in 809 under Angelo Participazio and carried on by 
the different Doges. It was Marino Faliero who caused the 
two facades on the Mole and the Piazzetta to be built in 
1355 as they now are. This construction brought happiness 
neither to him who ordered nor to the architect : the 
former was decapitated and the latter hanged. 

Into this strange edifice, — at once a palace, senate, tri- 
bunal and prison under the government of the Republic, — 
we enter by a charming door in St. Mark's corner, between 
the pillars of St. John of Acre and the great, thick column 
supporting the entire weight of the immense white and rose 
marble wall that gives such an original aspect to the ancient 
palace of the Doges. 

This door, called Delia Carta, is in charming architec- 
tural taste, adorned with little columns, trefoils and statues, 
without counting the inevitable, indispensable winged lion 
of St. Mark, and leads into the great interior court by a 
vaulted passage. This somewhat singular arrangement of 
an entrance so to speak placed without the edifice to 
which it leads has the advantage of not interfering in any 



THE DUCAL PALACE g 

way with the unity of its facades, which are not broken by 
any projection except that of their monumental windows. 

Before passing under the arcade, let us glance over the 
exterior of the palace to note a few of its interesting details. 
Above the thick and robust column of which we have just 
spoken, there is a bas-relief of savage aspect representing 
the 'Judgment of Solomon^ with mediaeval costume and a 
certain barbarity of execution that renders it hard to recog- 
nize the subject. This bas-relief opens into the long 
twisted little columns that cordon each angle of the 
building. 

On the facade of the Piazzetta, up on the second gallery, 
two columns of red marble mark the place whence the death 
sentences were read, — a custom that still exists to-day. 
All the capitals are in exquisite taste and inexhaustible 
variety. Not one is a repetition. They contain chimaerae, 
children, angels, fantastic animals, and sometimes Biblical 
or historical subjects, mingled with foliage, acanthus, fruits 
and flowers that forcibly show up the poverty of invention 
of our modern artists : several bear half effaced inscriptions 
in Gothic characters, which in order to be fluently read 
would require a skilful paleographer. There are twenty- 
seven arcades on the Mole and eighteen on the Piazzetta. 

The Porta della Carta leads you to the Giant's Staircase, 
which is not itself gigantic, but takes its name from the two 
colossi of Neptune and Mars, a dozen feet in height, by 
Sansovino, standing on pedestals at the top of the flight. 
This staircase, leading from the courtyard to the second 
gallery that decks the interior as well as the exterior of the 



10 THE DUCAL PALACE 

palace, was raised during the dogedom of Agostino Bar- 
barigo by Antonio Rizzio. It is of white marble, decorated 
by Domenico and Bernardo of Mantua with arabesques and 
trophies in very slight relief, but of such perfection as to 
be the despair of all the ornamenters, carvers and engravers 
in the world. It is no longer architecture, but goldsmith's 
work, such as Benvenuto Cellini and Vechte alone could 
produce. Every morsel of this open balustrade is a world 
of invention ; the weapons and casques of every bas-relief, 
each one different, are of the rarest fancy and the purest 
style ; even the slabs of the steps are ornamented with ex- 
quisite niello^ and yet who knows anything of Domenico 
and Bernardo of Mantua? The memory of mankind, al- 
ready wearied with a hundred illustrious names, refuses to 
retain any more, and consigns to oblivion names that are 
deserving of all glory. 

If we turn around on reaching the head of this staircase, 
we see the inner side of the doorway of Bartolomeo, 
flowered over with volutes and plated with little columns 
and statues, with remnants of blue painting starred with 
gold in the tympanums of the arch. Among the statues, 
one in particular is very remarkable : it is an Eve by 
Antonio Rizzio of Verona, carved in 147 1. The other 
side, facing the Wells, was built in 1607 in the style of the 
Renaissance, with columns and niches full of antique 
statues from Greece, representing warriors, orators, and 
divinities. A clock and a statue of the Duke Urbino, 
carved by Gio Bandini of Florence in 1625, complete this 
severe and classic front. 



THE DUCAL PALACE II 

Lettino- your glance fall towards the middle of the court, 
vou see what look like magnificent bronze altars. Thev 
are the mouths of the cisterns of Xicolo de' Conti 
and Francesco Alberghetti. The first dates from 1556, 
the second from 1559. Both are masterpieces. Besides 
the obligatory accompaniment of griffins, sirens, and 
chimaerae, various aquatic subjects taken from the Scrip- 
tures are represented in them. One could not imag- 
ine such richness of invention, such exquisite taste, such 
perfection of carving, nor such finished work as is displayed 
bv the kerbs of these wells enriched with the polish and 
verdigris of time. Even the inside of the mouth is plated 
with thin sheets of bronze branched with a damascene of 
arabesques. These two wells are said to contain the best 
water in A'^enice. 

Near the Giant's Staircase is an inscription framed with 
ornaments and figures by Alessandro Vittoria recalling the 
passage of Henrv III. through Venice ; and farther on in 
the gallery at the approach to the golden staircase are two 
statues by Antonio Aspetti, — Hercules and Atlas bending 
beneath the starn- firmament, the weight of which the 
mighty hero is about to transfer to his own bull-neck. 
This magnificent staircase, adorned with stuccos bv Vit- 
toria and paintings by Giambatista, is by Sansovino, and 
leads to the library which now occupies several rooms of 
the Palace of the Doges. To attempt to describe them one 
bv one would be a work of patience and erudition that 
would require a whole volume. 

The old hall of the Grand Council is one of the largest 



12 THE DUCAL PALACE 

you could find anywhere. The Court of Lions at the Al- 
hambra would easily go inside it. On entering, you stand 
still, struck with astonishment. By an effect that is some- 
what frequently found in architecture, this hall looks much 
larger than the building that contains it. A sombre and 
severe wainscoting, where bookcases have taken the place 
of the seats of the old senators, serves as a plinth for im- 
mense paintings that extend all around the walls, broken 
only by windows, below a line of portraits of the Doges 
and a colossal gilded ceiling of incredible exuberance of or- 
namentation, with great compartments, square, octagonal 
and oval, with foliage, volutes, and rock-work in a taste 
scarcely appropriate to the style of the palace, but so im- 
posing and magnificent that you are quite dazzled by it. 
Unfortunately, the pictures by Paul Veronese, Tintoret, 
Palma the Younger, and other great masters, that filled 
these superb frames have now been removed on account of 
indispensable repairs. 

That side of the hall by which you enter is entirely 
occupied by a gigantic Paradise by Tintoret, which con- 
tains a world of figures. It is a strong painting and it is a 
pity that time has so greatly darkened it. The smoky 
shadows that cover it belong to a Hell rather than to a 
Glory. Behind this canvas, a fact that we have not been 
in a position to verify, it is said that there is an ancient 
Paradise painted in green camai'eu upon the wall by Guari- 
ento of Padua in 1365. It would be curious to be able to 
compare this green Paradise with the black one. It is only 
Venice that has one depth of painting below another. 



THE DUCAL PALACE 



13 



This hall is a kind of Versailles museum of Venetian 
histon', with the difference that if the exploits are not so 
great, the painting is far better. It is impossible to im- 
agine a more wonderful effect than is produced by this im- 
mense hall entirely covered by these pompous paintings 
that excel in the Venetian genius. Above these great his- 
torical scenes, is a row of portraits of the Doges bv Tin- 
toret, Bassano, and other painters ; as a rule, thev have a 
smoky and bearded appearance, although, contrary to the 
impression we form, they have no beards. In one corner 
the eve is arrested at an empty and black frame that makes 
a hole as dark as a tomb in this chronological gallery'. It 
is the space that should be occupied by the portrait of Ma- 
rino Faliero, as told by this inscription : Loom Marini 
PhaUtri^ decapitati pro criminibus. All the effigies of Ma- 
rino Faliero were also destroyed, so that his portrait may 
be said to be undiscoverable. However, it is pretended 
that there is one in the possession of an amateur at Verona. 
The republic wanted to destrov the raemorv of this 
haughty old man who brought it within an inch of ruin in 
revenge for a vouth's jest that was sufficiently punished bv a 
few months' imprisonment. To finish with Marino Faliero, 
let us note that he was not beheaded at the head of the 
Giant's Staircase, as is represented in several prints, since 
that stairwav was not built till a hundred and fifty years 
later, but in the opposite corner at the other end of the 
gallery, upon the top of a flight of steps since demolished. 

We will now name the most celebrated chambers of the 
palace without pretending to describe them in detail. In 



14 



THE DUCAL PALACE 



the chamber dei Scarlatti^ the chimney-piece is covered with 
marble reliefs of the finest workmanship. On the impost 
also is seen a very curious bas-relief in marble representing 
the Doge Loredan on his knees before the Virgin and 
Child, accompanied by several saints, — an admirable piece 
of work by an unknown artist. The Hall of the Shield : 
here the arms of the living Doge were emblazoned. It is 
hung with geographical charts by the Abbe Grisellini that 
trace the discoveries of Marco Polo, so long treated as 
fabulous, and of other illustrious Venetian travellers, such 
as Zeni and Cabota. Here also is kept a globe, found on 
a Turkish galley, engraved upon wood and of strange con- 
figuration being in accordance with Oriental ideas and 
covered with Arabic characters cut with marvellous deli- 
cacy ; also a great bird's-eye view of Venice by Albrecht 
Diirer, who made a long stay in the city of the Doges. 
The aspect of the city is generally the same as to-day, 
since for three centuries one stone has not been laid upon 
another in the Italian cities. 

In the Hall of the Philosophers, a very beautiful chim- 
ney-piece by Pierre Lombard is to be noticed. The Hall 
of Stuccos, so called because of its ornamentation, contains 
paintings by Salviati, Pordenone, and Bassano : the Firgin^ 
a Descent from the Cross ^ and the Nativity of Jesus Christ. 
The banquet-hall is where the Doge used to give certain 
feasts of etiquette, — diplomatic dinners, as we should say 
to-day. Here we see a portrait of Henry III. by Tintoret, 
very strong and very fine ; and facing the door is the 
Adoration of the Magi^ a warm painting by Bonifazio, that 



THE DUCAL PALACE I5 

great master of whose work we possess scarcely anything in 
Paris. The Hall of the Four Doors has a square anteroom, 
the ceiling of which, painted by Tintoret, represents Justice 
giving the sword and scales to the Doge Priuli. The four 
doors are adorned with statues of grand fsrm by Guilio del 
Moro, Francesco Caselli, Girolamo Campagna, and Ales- 
sandro Vittoria; the paintings that enrich the room are 
masterpieces. 

From this hall let us pass into the Anti-Collegio ; it is 
the waiting-room of the ambassadors, the architecture being 
by Scamozzi. The envoys of the various powers who 
came to present their credentials to the Most Serene Re- 
public could scarcely have been in a hurry to be intro- 
duced : the masterpieces crowded with such lavishness into 
this splendid anteroom would induce anyone to be patient. 
The four pictures near the door are by Tintoret, and 
among his best. These are the subjects : Mercury and 
the Graces ; Vulcan's Forge ; Pa/las^ accompanied by 'Joy and 
Abundance^ chasing Mars ; and Ariadne consoled by Bacchus. 
Apart from a few rather forced foreshorten ings and a few 
violent attitudes in which this master took pleasure on ac- 
count of their difficulty, we can do nothing but praise the 
virile energy of touch, the warmth of colour, the truth of 
the flesh, the lifelike power and that forceful and charm- 
ing grace that distinguishes mighty talents when they 
have to render sweet and gentle subjects. 

But the marvel of this sanctuary of art is the Rape of 
Europa., by Paul Veronese. What lovely white shoulders ! 
what blonde curling tresses ! what round and charming 



1 6 THE DUCAL PALACE 

arms ! what smiles of eternal youth in this wonderful can- 
vas in which Paul Veronese seems to have spoken his final 
word ! Sky, clouds, trees, flowers, meadows, seas, tints, 
draperies, all seem bathed in the glow of an unknov/n 
Elysium. If we had to choose one single example of all 
Paul Veronese's work, this is the one we should prefer : it 
is the most beautiful pearl in this rich casket. 

On the ceiling the great artist has seated his dear Venice 
on a golden throne with that amplitude of drapery and that 
abundant grace of which he possesses the secret. For this 
Assumption^ in which Venice takes the place of the Virgin, 
he always knows how to find fresh blues and new 
radiance. 

The magnificent chimney-piece by Aspetti, a stucco 
cornice by Vittoria and Bombarda, blue camaieu by Sebas- 
tian Rizzi and columns of verde antique and Cipolin 
marble framing the door complete this marvellous decora- 
tion in which shines the most beautiful of all luxuries, — that 
of genius. 

The reception-hall, or the Collegio, comes next. Here 
we find Tintoret and Paul Veronese, the former red and 
violent, the other azure and calm ; the first, suited to great 
expanses of wall, the second, for immense ceilings. We 
will not speak of the camaieu, the grisailles^ the columns 
of verde antique^ the little arches of flowered jasper and 
sculptures by G. Campagna : we should never finish ; and 
those are the ordinary sumptuous details in the Palace of 
the Doges. 

There are many other admirable rooms in the Ducal 



THE DUCAL PALACE 



17 



Palace that we have not mentioned. The Hall of the 
Council of Ten, the Hall of the Supreme Council, the 
Hall of the State Inquisitors, and many others. Upon 
their walls and ceilings sit side by side the apotheosis of 
Venice and the Assumption of the Virgin ; the Doges on 
their knees before some Madonna or other ; and mytho- 
logical heroes or fabulous gods ; the Lion of St. Mark and 
Jupiter's Eagle; the Emperor Frederick Barbarossa .and a 
Neptune ; Pope Alexander HI. and a short-kilted Allegory. 
Mix up stories from the Bible and holy Virgins beneath balda- 
quins, captures of Zara embroidered with more numer- 
ous episodes than one of Ariosto's songs, and surprises of 
Candia with jumbles of Turks ; carve the door-cases ; cover 
the cornices with mouldings and stucco ; set up statues in 
every corner ; lay gold upon everything that is not covered 
by the brush of a superior artist ; say : " All those who 
have laboured here, even the obscure, had twenty times as 
much talent as our celebrities of the present day ; and the 
greatest masters have employed their lives here ; " and then 
you will have a feeble idea of all this magnificence that de- 
fies description. Painters, whose names are not uttered 
once a century, here hold their place in most terrible prox- 
imities. You would say that genius was in the air at that 
climacteric epoch of human progress and that nothing was 
easier than to produce masterpieces. The sculptors espe- 
cially, of whom no one ever speaks, display an extraordinary 
talent and are not in the least inferior to the greatest 
painters. 

Close to the door of one of these rooms we still see. 



I 8 THE DUCAL PALACE 

though robbed of all its prestige of terror, and reduced to 
the condition of an unused letter-box, the ancient Lion's 
Mouth to which the informers came to cast in their denun- 
ciations. Nothing remains now but a hole in the wall : 
the jaw has been removed. A sombre corridor leads you 
to the Hall of the State Inquisitors, to the Leads, and to the 
Wells that have served as a text for an infinity of senti- 
mental declamation. Certainly there are no beautiful pris- 
ons ; but the truth is that the Leads were large chambers 
covered with lead, a material with which the roofs of most 
of the edifices of Venice are covered and which has nothing 
particularly cruel about it ; and that the Wells were not 
below the level of the lagoon. We visited two or three of 
these cells. Covered with wood on the inside, they had a 
low door and a little opening facing the lamp fixed to the 
roof of the passage. A wooden camp-bed occupied one of 
the corners. 

It was black and stifling, but without any melodramatic 
accessories. Upon the walls are decipherable several of 
those inscriptions that prison weariness engraves with a 
nail upon the wall of the tomb : signatures, dates, short 
sentences from the Bible, philosophical reflections appro- 
priate to the spot, a timid sigh for liberty, sometimes the 
cause of the imprisonment, such as the inscription in which 
a captive says that he has been incarcerated for sacrilege. 
At the entrance to a corridor they showed us a stone seat 
on which those who were secretly executed in the prison 
were made to sit. A slender cord cast around the neck 
and twisted like a garotte strangled them in the Turkish 



THE DUCAL PALACE ig 

manner. These clandestine executions were only for state 
prisoners convicted of political crimes. The deed being 
done, the corpse was bundled into a gondola through a 
door opening on to the Canal della Paglia and it was taken 
away to be sunk with a cannon-ball or stone at the feet in 
the Orfanello Canal which is very deep and where fisher- 
men are forbidden to cast their nets. 

Vulgar assassins are executed between the two columns 
at the entrance of the Piazzetta. The Bridge of Sighs, 
which seen from the Paille Bridge, looks like a cenotaph 
suspended over the water, has nothing remarkable inside : 
it is a double corridor divided by a wall which serves as a 
covered way from the Ducal Palace to the Prison, the 
severe and solid edifice built by Antonio da Ponte, and 
situated on the other side of the Canal facing the lateral 
facade of the Palace which is supposed to have been built 
from the plans of Antonio Riccio. The name of the Bridge 
of Sighs, given to that tomb that connects two prisons, 
probably comes from the lamentations of the unfortunates 
going from their cell to the tribunal and back again, broken 
by torture, or in despair after condemnation. In the even- 
• , ing this Canal, squeezed between the high walls of the two 
sombre edifices and illumined by some rare gleam, has a very 
sinister and mysterious aspect, and the gondolas that glide 
along there bearing some handsome pair of lovers going to 
get a little fresh air on the lagoon, look as if they have a 
burden for the Orfanello Canal. 

We have also visited the ancient apartments of the 
Doge; nothing remains of their primitive magnificence 



20 THE DUCAL PALACE 

except a highly ornamental ceiling divided into gilded and 
painted hexagonal compartments. In these spaces, shielded 
by foliage and rosebushes, was an invisible hole through 
which the State Inquisitors and the members of the Coun- 
cil of Ten could spy upon what the Doge was doing at all 
hours of the day and of the night. The walls, not con- 
tent with listening by an ear, like the prison of Denys the 
Tyrant, watched with an ever open eye, and the Doge who 
had conquered at Zara or at Candia heard, like Angelo, 
" steps in his walls " and felt a mysterious and jealous 
watch all about him. 



PALACE OF LINLITHGOW 

SIR WALTER SCOTT 

LINLITHGOW, distinguished by the combined 
strength and beauty of its situation, must have 
been early selected as a royal residence. David, who bought 
the title of Saint by his liberality to the church, refers sev- 
eral of his characters to his town of Linlithgow, and in that 
of Holy Rood expressly bestows on the new monastery all 
the skins of the rams, ewes, and lambs belonging to his 
Castle of Linlitcu which shall die during the year. 

The convenience afforded for the sport of falconry, 
which was so great a favourite during the feudal ages, was 
probably one cause of an attachment of the ancient Scot- 
tish monarchs to Linlithgow, and its fine lake. The sport 
of hunting was also followed with success in the neigh- 
bourhood, from which circumstance it probably arises that 
the ancient arms of the city represent a black greyhound- 
bitch tied to a tree. Tradition, however, ascribes other 
causes for this remarkable emblem, but is, as usual, rather 
inconsistent in accounting for it otherwise. One legend 
says simply, that such a hound was found so tied on the 
small island on the east side of the loch. Another tradi- 
tion hints at a witch who used to assume this shape. A 
third more ungallantly adopts a metaphorical meaning, and 



22 PALACE OF LINLITHGOW 

affirms that a mistress of one of the kings was designated 
under this hieroglyphic. A Celt, according to Chalmers, 
might plausibly derive the name of Linlithgow from Lhi- 
Uath-cu^ the Lake of the Greyhound. Chalmers himself, 
seems to prefer the Gothic derivation of Lin-lyth-goiu^ or 
the Lake of the Great Vale. Non nostrum est. 

The Castle of Linlithgow is only mentioned as being a 
peel (a pile, that is, an embattled tower surrounded by an 
outwork). In 1300 it was rebuilt or repaired by Edward 
L, and used as one of the citadels by which he hoped to 
maintain his usurped dominion in Scotland, It is described 
by Barbour as " meihle and stark and stuffed weel." Piers 
Luband, a Gascoigne knight, was appointed the keeper, and 
appears to have remained there until the autumn of 13 13, 
when the Scots recovered the Castle under the followino- in- 
teresting circumstances : — 

There was, says our authority, Barbour, dwelling in the 
neighbourhood of Linlithgow, a stout-hearted husbandman, 
named William Binnock, who, observing that the Scots 
were on every hand recovering from the English the castles 
and fortresses which the invaders possessed within Scotland, 
could not brook that the peel in his vicinity, which was 
large, strong, and well supplied with arms and garrisons, 
should remain unassailed. He formed a stratagem, equally 
remarkable for ingenuity and audacity. The garrison was 
usually supplied by Binnock with hay, and they had lately 
required from him a fresh supply. He assured them of the 
excellence of the forage, and undertook to send it in early 
in the morning. But the hay was so arranged on the wain 



PALACE OF LINLITHGOW 



23 



as to conceal eight well-armed and determined men ; the 
team was driven by a sturdy peasant, who bore a sharp axe 
under his gaberdion. Binnock himself walked beside the 
waggon, to superintend, as it seemed, the safe delivery of 
the forage. The porter, on approach of Binnock, with his 
well-known wain, lowered the drawbridge and raised the 
portcullis. Just at the very gateway, the driver, as he had 
been instructed, drew his axe suddenly and cut asunder the 
soam, or tackle, by which the oxen were attached to the 
waggon. Binnock at the same instant struck the warder 
dead, and shouted the signal word, which was " Call all, 
call all." The assailants jumped from amongst the hay, 
and attacked the astonished garrison. The wain was so 
placed that neither could the gate be shut nor the portcullis 
lowered, nor the bridge raised, and a party of Scots, who 
were in ambush for the purpose, rushed in to second their 
forlorn hope, and were soon masters of the place. 

Bruce, faithful to his usual policy, caused the peel of 
Linlithgow to be dismantled, and worthily rewarded 
William Binnock, who had behaved with such gallantry 
on the occasion. From this bold yeoman the Binnies 
of West Lothian are proud to trace their descent ; and 
most, if not all of them, bear in their arms something con- 
nected with the waggon, which was the instrument of his 
stratagem. 

When times of comparative peace returned, Linlithgow 
again became the occasional residence of the sovereign. In 
1411 the town was burned by accident, and in 1414 was 
again subjected to the same calamity, together with the 



2A PALACE OF LINLITHGOW 

Church and Palace of the King, as is expressly mentioned 
by Bower. 

The present Church, which is a fine specimen of Gothic 
architecture, having a steeple surmounted by an imperial 
crown, was probably erected soon after that calamity. 

The Palace arose from its ashes with greater splendour 
than before ; for the family of Stuart, unhappy in so many 
respects, were all of them fortunate in their taste for the 
fine arts, and particularly for that of architecture. The 
Lordship of Linlithgow was settled as a dowry upon Mary 
of Gueldres in 1449, and again upon Margaret of Denmark 
in 1468. 

James the Fourth, as splendid a gallant, seems to have 
founded the most magnificent part of Linlithgow Palace ; 
together with the noble entrance betwixt two flanking 
towers bearing on rich entablatures the royal arms of Scot- 
land, with the collar of the Order of the Thistle, Garter, 
and Saint Michael. 

James IV., also erected in the Church a throne for him- 
self, and twelve stalls for Knights Companions of the 
Thistle. It was sitting here, in the time of public worship, 
and musing, perhaps, on his approaching invasion of Eng- 
land, that he received a singular advice from a singular per- 
sonage, which we cannot express better than in the words 
of Pitscottie : — 

" At this time the King visited Linlithgow, where he 
was at the Council, very sad and dolorous, making his 
prayers to God to send him a good success in his voyage. 
And there came a man clad in a blue gown, belted about 



PALACE OF LINLITHGOW 



25 



him with a roll of lining, and a pair of hrottik'ines on his 
feet, and all other things conform thereto. But he had 
nothing on his head but side hair to his shoulders, and bald 
before. He seemed to be a man of fifty years, and came 
fast forwards, crying among the lords, and specially for the 
King, saying, that he desired to speak with him ; while at 
the last he came to the desk where the King was at 
prayers. But when he saw the King, he gave him no due 
reverence nor salutation, but leaned him down gruffly upon 
the desk, and said, ' Sir King, my mother has sent me to 
thee, desiring thee not to go where thou art purposed, 
which if thou do, thou shalt not fare well in thy journey, 
nor none that is with thee. Farther, she forbade thee, not 
to mell nor use the counsel of women, which if thou do, 
thou wilt be confounded and brought to shame.' By \the 
time\ this, man had spoken these words to the King, the 
even-song was near done, and the King paused on these 
words, studying to him an answer. But in the meantime, 
before the King's eyes, and in presence of the whole lords 
that were about him for the time, this man evanished away, 
and could no more be seen. I heard Sir David Lindsay, 
Lyon-herald, and John Inglis, the Marishall, who were at 
that time young men and special servants to the King's 
grace, thought to have taken this man, but they could not, 
that they might have speired \_aske({\ further tidings at him, 
but they could not touch him." 

Buchanan confirms this strange story on the word of a 
spectator. Sir David Lindsay, whose testimony he describes 
as unimpeachable. Thus supported, we have only to 



26 PALACE OF LINLITHGOW 

choose betwixt a deception and a supernatural appearance. 
The temper of James was one of those described by the 
poet as being " of imagination all compact." He was 
amorous, devotional, and chivalrous. This renders it 
highly probable that the simulated vision was contrived by 
some of the numerous party who advised a continuance of 
peace with England, and who might be of opinion that 
counsels conveyed in this mysterious manner might have 
some effect on the romantic spirit of the King. It is 
usually supposed that the vision was intended to represent 
Saint Andrew 5 but the use of the words, "my mother," 
seem rather to imply the Apostle John, who indicated by 
that term the Virgin Mary. 

The death of James IV. and rout of his army clouded 
for many a day the glory of Scotland, and marred the 
mirth of her palaces. 

James V. was much attached to Linlithgow, and added to 
the Palace both the Chapel and Parliament Hall, the last of 
which is peculiarly striking. So that when he brought his 
bride Mary of Guise there, amid the festivities which ac- 
companied their wedding, she might have more reasons 
than mere complaisance for highly commending the 
edifice, and saying that she never saw a more princely 
palace. It was long her residence, and that of her royal 
husband, at Linlithgow. Mary was born there in an apart- 
ment still shown ; and the ill-fated father dying within a 
few days of that event, left the ominous diadem which he 
wore to the still more unfortunate infant. 

It is remarkable that during this reign there was acted at 



PALACE OF LINLITHGOW 



27 



Linlithgow, in presence of the King, Queen, and whole 
court, and, so far as appears, with great applause, a play, or 
theatrical presentation, by Sir David Lindsay, called the 
Satire of the Three Estates^ in which much coarse and in- 
delicate farce and buffoonery is intermixed with the most 
pointed censure upon the affairs both of church and state. 
The comic mummery was undoubtedly thrown in with the 
purpose of Rabelais, to mitigate the edge of the satire, by 
representing the whole as matter of idle and extravagant 
mirth. But when the serious and direct tenor of the piece 
is considered, no one can doubt that the Prince before 
whom it was acted, and by whom it seems to have been 
well received, meditated reforms both in church and state, 
however diverted from them by the arts of the church- 
men. 

In the subsequent reign of Queen Mary, Linlithgow 
was the scene of several remarkable events ; the most 
interesting of which was the assassination of the Regent 
Murray by Hamilton of Bothwellhaugh. This James VL 
loved the royal residence of Linlithgow, and completed the 
original plan of the Palace, closing the great square by a 
stately range of apartments of great architectural beauty. 
He also made a magnificent fountain in the Palace-yard, 
now ruinous, as are all the buildings around. Another 
grotesque Gothic fountain adorns the street of the town, 
which, with the number of fine springs, leads to the popular 
rhyme : 

Linlithgow for wells, 
Stirling for bells. 



28 PALACE OF LINLITHGOW 

Among the attendants of James the Sixth was a distin- 
guished personage of a class which may be found in most 
places of public resort. This was the celebrated Rob 
Gibb, the king's fool or jester. Fool as he was, Rob Gibb 
seems to have understood his own interest. Upon one oc- 
casion it pleased his sapient Majesty King Jamie to instal 
Rob in his own royal chair, the sport being to see how he 
would demean himself as sovereign. The courtiers entered 
into the king's humour, overwhelming Rob Gibb with pe- 
titions for places, pensions, and benefices, not sorry per- 
haps to have an opportunity of hinting, in the presence of 
the real sovereign, secret hopes and wishes, which they 
might have no other opportunity of expressing. But Rob 
Gibb sternly repelled the whole supplicants together, as a 
set of unmercifully greedy sycophants, who followed their 
worthy king only to see what they could make of him. 
" Get ye hence, ye covetous selfish loons," he exclaimed, 
" and bring to me my own dear and trusty servant, Rob 
Gibb, that I may honour the only one of my court who 
serves me for stark love and kindness." It would not have 
been unlike King Jamie to have answered, " that he was 
but a fool, and knew no better." 

Rob's presence of mind did not go unrewarded ; for 
either on this or some future occasion, he was in such 
"good foolery " as to get a grant of a small estate in the 
vicinity of the burgh. 

When the sceptre passed from Scotland, oblivion sat 
down in the halls of Linlithgow ; but her absolute desola- 
tion was reserved for the memorable era of 1745-6. 



PALACE OF LINLITHGOW 



29 



About the middle of January in that year, General Haw- 
ley marched at the head of a strong army to raise the siege 
of Stirling, then pressed by the Highland insurgents under 
the adventurous Charles Edward. The English general 
had expressed considerable contempt of his enemy, who, 
he affirmed, would not stand a charge of cavalry. On the 
night of the 17th he returned to Linlithgow, with all the 
marks of defeat, having burned his tents, and left his artil- 
lery and baggage. His disordered troops were quartered in 
the Palace, and began to make such great fires on the 
hearth as to endanger the safety of the edifice. A lady of 
the Livingston family who had apartments there, remon- 
strated with General Hawley, who treated her fears with 
contempt. " I can run away from fire as fast as you can. 
General," answered the high-spirited dame, and with this 
sarcasm took horse for Edinburgh. Very soon after her 
departure her apprehensions were realized ; the Palace of 
Linlithgow caught fire, and was burned to the ground. 
The ruins alone remain to show its former splendour. 

The situation of Linlithgow Palace is eminently beauti- 
ful. It stands on a promontory of some elevation, which 
advances almost into the midst of the lake. The form is 
that of a square court, composed of buildings of four stories 
high, with towers at the angles. The fronts within the 
square, and the windows, are highly ornamented, and the 
size of the rooms, as well as the width and character of 
the staircases, are upon a magnificent scale. One banquet- 
room is ninety-four feet long, thirty feet wide, and thirty- 
three feet high, with a gallery for music. The King's 



90 PALACE OF LINLITHGOW 

wardrobe, or dressing-room, looking to the west, projects 
over the walls so as to have a delicious prospect on three 
sides, and is one of the most enviable boudoirs we have 
ever seen. 

There were two main entrances to Linlithgow Palace. 
That from the south ascends rather steeply from the town, 
and passes through a striking Gothic archway, flanked by 
two round towers. The portal has been richly adorned by 
sculpture, in which can be traced the arms of Scotland 
with the collars of the Thistle, the Garter, and Saint 
Michael. This was the work of James V., and is in a 
most beautiful character. 

The other entrance is from the eastward. The gateway 
is at some height from the foundation of the wall, and there 
are opposite to it the remains of a perron^ or ramp of ma- 
son-work, which those who desired to enter must have 
ascended by steps. A drawbridge, which could be raised 
at pleasure, united, when it was lowered, the ramp with 
the threshold of the gateway, and when raised, left a gap 
between them, which answered the purpose of a moat. 
On the inside of the eastern gateway is a figure, much mu- 
tilated, said to have been that of Pope Julius II., the same 
Pontiff who sent to James IV. the beautiful sword which 
makes part of the Regalia. 

"To what base offices we may return ! " In the course 
of the last war, those beautiful remains, so full of ancient re- 
membrances, very narrowly escaped being defaced and dis- 
honoured, by an attempt to convert them into barracks for 
French prisoners of war. The late President Blair, as 



PALACE OF LINLITHGOW 



31 



zealous a patriot as he was an excellent lawyer, had the 
merit of averting this insult upon one of the most striking 
objects of antiquity which Scotland yet affords. I am 
happy to add, that of late years the Court of the Exchequer 
have, in this and similar cases, shown much zeal to pre- 
serve our national antiquities, and stop the dilapidations 
which were fast consuming them. 

In coming to Linlithgow by the Edinburgh road, the 
first view of the town, with its beautiful steeple, sur- 
mounted with a royal crown, and the ruinous towers of the 
Palace arising out of a canopy of trees, forms a most im- 
pressive object. All that is wanting is something of more 
elevated dignity to the margin of the lake. But it is not 
easy to satisfy the inconsistent wishes of amateurs. 

We may in taking leave of this subject, use once more 
the words of old Sir David of the Mount, in his Complaint 
of the Papingo : — 

Farewell Linlithgow , whose Palace of pleasaunce 
Might be a pattern in Portugal or France. 



ARUNDEL CASTLE 
ALICE MEYNELL 

EVEN pastoral England, which has a character of its 
own so different from that of pastoral districts else- 
where — so much richer in its details is it, and so much 
blunter and rounder in its forms, than the pasture-lands and 
cornlands of Italy, or France, or Spain, or Greece — even 
this distinctive and separated country has variations within 
itself. The heart of England — the country of George 
Eliot and the tract which lies within near or distant sight 
of the Malvern Hills — has a drier, crisper beauty about its 
green fields and rich woods. The great peaceful plain is 
broken by undulations, which are lost from a distant view, 
and nowhere, not even by the brimming waters of the 
Severn, are there such perfectly flat fields, pasture, marsh, 
and cornfield lying together, even and low, as those into 
which the gently raised tablelands of England subside be- 
tween the downs of the South Coast. Such lands lie about 
the feet of the Arundel hills, open to a boundless sky, in- 
vested in light night mists, full of cattle, watered by a little 
river and its streams which scarcely creep towards the sea 
where it lies level with the land, or in some places level 
with the hedgerows. 

The aspect of things here is Tennysonian. Looking 



ARUNDEL CASTLE 



33 



along the fields towards Arundel where it curves into the 
arm of its hill, and from a distance sufficient to lend en- 
chantment to the mean details which mar any English 
town upon a close sight, the place looks like the " dim rich 
city " in Elaine. There might be a warder looking out 
from the castle keep, a knight might be riding up to the 
walls in -the twilight. Not many years ago owls did hoot 
about that tower, but they died and were stuffed. The 
peacefulness of the flat lowlands too, the richness of the 
level pastures, in which the dark brown cattle stand knee- 
deep, the softening haze of lowland mist, and the general 
prosperity of things, all have something of the flavour of 
the same poetry. It is otherwise when the hills are 
climbed, and the free breezy uplands of the park, with 
the moory, dry, gay country towards Petworth, opens out. 
There we have a beauty which suggests a less mild and 
meditative muse. 

Arundel dates back to the most respectable antiquity, for 
King Alfred bequeathed the Castle in his will, with the 
neighbouring lordships to his nephew Athelm. It after- 
wards passed into the hands of the great Earl Godwin and 
to his son. King Harold. And when William the Con- 
queror was minded to reward his Normans for their serv- 
ices in his wars, the Earldoms of Shrewsbury and of 
Arundel fell to the share of one Roger de Montgomery, 
who rebuilt and enlarged the fortalice of Arundel. The 
fair stronghold then went on changing hands, passing now 
to the kings of England, and now forming the marriage 
dower of a princess. Among its towers the Empress Maud 



34 



ARUNDEL CASTLE 



found refuge from her enemy Stephen, and was besieged ; 
but as she was the guest of Adeliza, widow of Henry I., 
he courteously permitted her at last to depart in peace, for 
the love of hospitality. The place was now the perma- 
nent property of Adeliza's second husband and of his heirs, 
and so, roughly speaking, it has remained, the fifth in suc- 
cession from him being the first who bore the name of 
Fitzalan. The only interruptions of their tenure were 
temporary ones, and consisted of two short forfeitures to 
the Crown, besides a seizure by the capacious and rapacious 
hands of good Queen Bess, who kept it until her death, 
when her successor restored it to its rightful lord. 

One Earl of Arundel lost his head for high treason 
against Richard II. During the Civil Wars the Castle 
was besieged and besieged, being first seized by the Par- 
liamentarians in the absence of the owner, then captured 
by the Royalists after three days' fighting, and subse- 
quently retaken by the Parliamentarians under Waller, 
who laid siege on the 19th of December, 1643, ^"^ entered 
the Castle on the 6th of January, 1644. Upon this an order 
in Council commanded that the walls of the town of Arundel 
and those of Chichester should be destroyed. Since more 
peaceful times have reigned, within England at least, res- 
toration has been at work somewhat busily, and several 
Royal visits have wakened " our loyal passion for our tem- 
perate Kings," in the steep high-street and in the public- 
houses of the borough. A borough, alas ! it is no longer. 
Having enjoyed, in the good old times, the luxury of a 
couple of members, it was reduced to a pittance of one by 



ARUNDEL CASTLE 



35 



the first Reform Bill, and entirely disfranchised by the 
second. 

The station lies in the valley at some little distance from 
the town ; as you follow the road from the rail you have 
Arundel and the Castle before you, the principal object of 
the view being the great church of St. Philip Neri, built bv 
the present Duke of Norfolk some years ago at a cost of 
;/^ioo,ooo. It is still new, ine\'itably new. That is a 
fault which time will cure ; but in the meanwhile no little 
disharmony is created between the ancient ruddy colours of 
the old walls, of the Castle with its town and the somewhat 
harsh whiteness of the church. Its form, too, being up- 
right, is not felicitous in its composition with the lower and 
longer lines of antique English masonr)^ It mav not 
have been the Duke's express purpose, when he built the 
" house of God," to dwarf his own hereditary home and 
fortress, as we once heard a passenger in a railwav-train 
passing the place declare; but if that svmbolic and ascetic 
intention was ever entertained, it has been eifectuallv ful- 
filled. The best consolation which we can offer to the 
lovers of the past for the intrusion of the modern Gothic 
church, is that the ruins which thev admire were brand- 
new in the old times which thev cherish — strong, sharp, 
neat, and finished, with no ivy anywhere, and no pleasing 
uncertainties of outline. As you draw near to the town 
you see the rich woods which clothe the hillside trending 
off to the right towards the Black Rabbit, where the wind- 
ing lines of the lazy Arun pass inland. To the left stretch 
the fields towards a little place called Ford, and in front 



36 



ARUNDEL CASTLE 



climbs the High-street. At the top of the High-street is 
the Castle, and then the road turns to the left towards this 
great dominating church of St. Philip. 

The donjon is manifestly the most ancient part of the 
Castle. It dates from Saxon times, and is traditionally be- 
lieved to have been part of the stronghold as it was in the 
days of Alfred the Great. It stands on an artificial 
eminence, and from its ramparts the view is wide and fair; 
westwards over the rich country, over the delicate distant 
spire of Chichester, to the farther downs of the Isle of 
Wight ; southwards to the mouth of the little river Arun, 
and the port of Littlehampton lying with sea-side pastures 
around it, level with the sea; eastwards to the South 
Downs ; and northwards over the home garden and the 
thick woods of the lower park to Burpham, where British 
antiquities of no small importance were at once discovered, 
amono-st them a canoe with its anchor — the relic of a 

CD 

probably half-civilized and Christian people, compared to 
whom the invading English were savages of furious wild- 
ness. At the top of the keep bide those stuffed owls which 
some years ago flew about its battlements. The rest of the 
Castle is merely an antique fortress dwelling-place, much 
restored in a jumble of styles, but with a general pictur- 
esqueness of effect. The alterations which it is now un- 
dergoing will doubtless much modify its details, if not its 
mass. 

A little higher, and at some distance from the fortalice of 
Arundel, is the parish church, a venerable fane, some parts 
of it dating five hundred \'ears back. Old and new are 



ARUNDEL CASTLE 



37 



confused together in the place, a Fourteenth Century 
font, some frescoes of approximately the same date, and 
other precious antiquities being side by side with brilliant 
windows of modern glass and in modern taste, and a num- 
ber of energetic " restorations." From the tower the 
Parliamentarians poured shot and bullet into the Royalist- 
guarded ramparts of the Castle. The " Fitzalan Chapel," 
properly the chancel of this church, has been the subject of 
a sufficiently celebrated law-suit. Built in the Fourteenth 
Century by an Earl of Arundel, it was turned to secular 
uses — to uses indeed of the most secular kind — at the time 
of the Reformation and thereafter, and is now, of course, a 
monument and no more. As, however, it contains the 
bones of their fathers, the Dukes of Norfolk have natur- 
ally maintained their proprietorship and their interest in the 
sometime sanctuary, and it was recently shut off from the 
body of the chufch by the bricking up of the connecting 
doorway. The Vicar thereupon committed the legal and 
formal trespass of removing a brick, in order that the pro- 
prietorship of the Fitzalan Chapel might come under the 
decision of the courts. That decision confirmed the 
Duke and his rights, therefore the division remains; but the 
church is complete and ample enough for all purposes as 
it now stands. The monuments in the Fitzalan Chapel 
are of great interest and beauty. The earliest of them are 
of the same period as the foundation ; the most beautiful is 
the chantry of William Fitzalan, with its fine and elaborate 
tracery ; and perhaps the most interesting is the tomb of 
John Fitzalan, which was for centuries believed to be a 



38 



ARUNDEL CASTLE 



cenotaph. The hero to whose memory it was erected lost 
a leg at the battle of Gerberoy and died in France thirteen 
months later, in 1435. He was buried in the Church of the 
Grey Friars, at Beauvais, Normandy. Not very long ago 
a discovery was made, in the Prerogative Court at Canter- 
bury, of the will of one Fooke Eiton, Esquire, which had 
been proved in 1454, and which stated that the testator had 
ransomed the body of the Earl " oute of the frenchemennys 
handes." In 1857 search was made under the supposed 
cenotaph, and the bones of a human body which had lost 
one leg were discovered. How or when the pious and 
faithful " Fooke Eiton, Esquire," had effected the reburial 
by means of which the brave Fitzalan slept with his 
fathers, there is no record to tell. 

Quite near the grey and mouldering parish church, with 
its cemetery and its yews, rises the great modern Roman 
Catholic church of which we have already spoken. Close 
by is the park, to which we hasten, as the glory of the 
country side. A narrow embowered road, entered by a 
little gate, leads to the fair space of sward and tree, with 
its deep valleys and sudden hills, one of the grandest parks 
in England ; lacking, of course, the charm and pathos, the 
nobility and humility, which the most beautiful nature may 
gain from the signs of labour, agriculture, and the poor ; 
and yet not oppressive with too heavy verdure or any 
blank, damp, over-green spaces of melancholy grass and 
sponge-like trees. The soil of Arundel Park is composed 
chiefly of that great flower-bearer chalk. It is so thin that 
it does not nourish gigantically heavy trees, but lighter and 



ARUNDEL CASTLE 39 

gayer beeches. The ground is high and abruptly broken, 
and the whole aspect of things needs only some sign of the 
peasant's life to be eminently paintable. Hill beyond hill 
rises In distance behind distance. Under a fine sky the 
scene is so grand that, though fresh from contemplating 
that panorama of the junction of the great Rhine and the 
little Moselle among the hills at Coblentz — the landscape 
which the late Lord Lytton pronounced the most beautiful 
in Europe — we were constrained to think Arundel Park 
lovelier as we drove to Petworth over its open hills. The 
orthodox deer are here, in pretty and vivacious herds 
which number considerably over a thousand. A charming 
little solitary lake, haunt of that shrill bird, the dab-chick, 
lies in a hollow to the right ; thence rises a thick beech 
wood, and the path that curves round the base of the beech- 
hill leads to one of the local lions, the dairy. The " tiled 
temple of cleanliness " is fascinating enough to the lover of 
cream and curds, but it is hard to forgive the demolition of 
a very ancient mill which stood on the same site. The air 
about the dairy is heavy with the luxurious scent of the 
magnolias which grow upon its walls. 

The road is leading us round again out of the park to- 
wards the town ; and here is a relic of the past in the 
shape of a ruined Dominican priory, which was built in 
1396, and which gave a home to twenty poor men living 
under the protection of a friar, until an end was put to the 
charity at the dissolution of monasteries ; and at the time 
of Waller's siege of the Castle, the priory was already in 
ruins., If instead of winding back into the lower town 



40 



ARUNDEL CASTLE 



of Arundel, whence we started, we take the road away to 
the left, we shall reach the " Black Rabbit," already men- 
tioned, where the dark, rich woods crowd the hillside, 
the little Arun sauntering at its feet. The Castle looks 
well from this side, where trees and not houses surround it. 



PALAZZO VECCHIO 

ALEXANDRE DUMAS 

GRAND as was the idea I had formed in advance of 
the Palazzo Vecchio, I must confess that the 
realization was still grander. When I saw that mass of 
stone so strongly rooted in the ground, surmounted by its 
tower that threatens the heavens like the arm of a Titan, 
the whole of old Florence, with her Guelphs, her Ghibe- 
lines, her balie, her priors, her lords, her guilds, her condot- 
t'leri^ her turbulent mobs and her haughty aristocracy 
appeared to me as though! were about to take part in the 
exiling of Cosmo the Elder, or in the execution of Sal- 
viati. In fact, four centuries of history and art are there on 
the right, on the left, in front and behind, surrounding you 
on all sides and speaking at once with their stone, marble 
and bronze of Nicholas d'Uzzano, Orcagna, Rinaldo 
d'Albizzi, Donatello, Pazzi, Raphael, Lorenzo de' Medici, 
Flaminius Vacca, Savonarola, John of Bologna, Cosmo I. 
and Michelangelo. 

The whole world may be searched in vain for a spot 
that brings such names together, without counting those 
I have omitted ! and some of the omissions include Baccio 
Bandinelli, Ammanato, and Benvenuto Cellini. 

I should much like to reduce this masnificent chaos to 



42 



PALAZZO VECCHIO 



some sort of order and chronologically classify the great 
men, the great works and the great memories, but that is 
impossible. When you arrive at this wonderful square, 
you must go where the eye carries you, or where instinct 
guides you. 

What first engrosses the attention of the artist, the poet, 
or the archaeologist, is the sombre Palazzo Vecchio, still 
blazoned with the ancient arms of the republic, amid 
which glitter on the azure, like stars in the sky, those in- 
numerable fleurs-de-lys sown along the road to Naples by 
Charles of Anjou. 

Florence was hardly free before she wanted to have a 
town hall as an abode for a chief magistrate and a belfry for 
calling the people together. When a community is con- 
stituted in the North, or a republic established in the South, 
the desire for a town-hall and a belfry is always the first 
operation of its will, and the satisfaction of that desire the 
first proof of its existence. 

Thus in 1298, that is to say only sixteen years after the 
Florentines had conquered their constitution, Arnolfo di 
Lapo received from the rulers the order to build a palace 
for them. 

Arnolfo di Lapo had visited the site reserved for him 
and had prepared his plans accordingly. But at the mo- 
ment of laying the foundations of his edifice, the people 
loudly forbade him to place a single stone upon the spot 
where the house of Farinata des Uberti had stood. Arnolfo 
di Lapo was forced to bow to this popular clamour; he 
pushed his edifice back into a corner and left the accursed 





L't^M 




PALAZZO VECCHIO, ITALY. 



PALAZZO VECCHIO 43 

spot unoccupied. Even to the present time neither stones 
nor trees have planted their roots there and nothing has in- 
truded for more than six centuries where Guelph vengeance 
drove the plough and soured w^ith salt. 

This palace was the residence of a standard-bearer and 
eight priors, two for each quarter of the city ; their charge 
lasted for sixty days and during that time they lived to- 
gether, eating at the same table and not being able to leave 
their residence : that is to say, they were almost prisoners. 
Each had two domestics to serve him and there was always 
a notary at their orders ready to write down their delibera- 
tions : he ate with them and was a prisoner like themselves. 
As a recompense for the sacrifice of his time and liberty 
that each prior made for the republic, he received ten 
pounds a day, or nearly seven francs of our money. At 
that day, private parsimony ruled in public economy, and 
the government thus found itself in a position to execute 
great things in art and in war. Thence resulted its sur- 
name of the Magnificent Republic. 

You enter the Palazzo Vecchio by a door situated about a 
third of the way along the front and find yourself in a little 
square court, surrounded by a portico supported by nine 
columns of Lombard architecture embellished with applied 
ornaments. In the centre of this court is a fountain sur- 
mounted by a rococo Cupid holding a fish and reposing 
on a porphyry basin. At the time of Ferdinand's marriage 
this portico was adorned with fresco paintings representing 
bird's-eye views of the cities of Germany. 

On the first floor is the great Council Hall, executed by 



44 



PALAZZO VECCHIO 



the orders of the Republic and at Savonarola's suggestion. 
A thousand citizens could deliberate there at their ease. 
Cronaca was the architect, and he pushed the work so 
rapidly that Savonarola used to say that the angels served 
as his masons. 

Cronaca had need of haste, for three years later Savona- 
rola was to die and thirty years afterwards the Republic 
was to fall. 

Therefore this immense hall has retained nothing of that 
period but its original form : all of its ornamentation be- 
longs to the time of the principality ; its frescoes and ceil- 
ing are by Vasari ; its pictures by Cigoli, Ligozzi and Pas- 
segnano ; and its statues by Michelangelo, Baccio Bandi- 
nelli and John of Bologna. 

All is to the great glory of Cosmo I. 

In fact, Cosmo I. is one of those gigantic statues that 
history raises like a pyramid to mark the limit where one 
era ends and another begins. Cosmo I. is at the same time 
the Augustus and the Tiberius of Tuscany, and this is so 
much the more true in that at the moment when Alex- 
ander fell beneath the poniard of Lorenzino, Florence found 
herself in the same situation as Rome was after Caesar's 
death : " There was no longer a tyrant, but there was no 
longer any liberty." 

At fifteen years of age his character was already out- 
lined and those who approached him could form an idea of 
what he would be later. His appearance was grave and 
even severe ; he was slow to form familiar relations and 
would seldom allow any familiarities ; but when he granted 



PALAZZO VECCHIO 



45 



this double concession it was a proof of his friendship, and 
his friendship was sure ; nevertheless, even with his friends 
he was discrete in all his actions and did not want any one 
to know what he intended to do until it was done. The 
result was that he always seemed to be seeking some end 
contrary to his real one, which always rendered his answers 
brief and sometimes obscure. 

This was Cosmo when he learnt the news of the assas- 
sination of Alexander and the flight of Lorenzino ; this 
flight left him without a competitor for the princedom and 
therefore his measures were quickly taken. He gathered 
together a few friends on whom he could depend, mounted 
his horse, and set out for Florence. 

Cosmo was rewarded for his confidence by the welcome 
that he received : he entered the city amid the joyous ac- 
clamations of all the inhabitants. Two days after, he was 
named chief and governor of the republic on four condi- 
tions : 

To dispense justice indifferently to the rich and to the 
poor. 

Never to consent to restore the authority of Charles the 
Fifth. 

To avenge the death of Duke Alexander. 

To treat well Giulio and Giula, the natural children of 
the latter. 

Cosmo accepted this species of charter with humility 
and the people accepted Cosmo with enthusiasm. 

But there happened to the new grand duke what happens 
to all men of genius who are raised to power by revolution. 



46 



PALAZZO VECCHIO 



On the lowest step of the throne they receive laws, 
from the top step they impose them. 

The position was difficult, particularly for a youth of 
eighteen. It was necessary to fight external and internal 
foes at the same time ; to substitute a firm government, a 
single power and a durable will for all those flabby or tyran- 
nical governments, for all those powers that were opposed 
and consequently destructive to one another, and for all 
those wills which sometimes starting from above and some- 
times from below caused a perpetual ebb and flow of aris- 
tocracy and democracy upon which it was impossible to 
establish anything solid and durable. And yet with all that 
it was necessary so to manage the liberties of this people 
that neither nobles, citizens, nor artisans might feel the 
master. In fact it was necessary to manage this horse, 
that was still rebellious under tyranny, with an iron hand 
beneath a silken glove. 

Cosmo was in every respect the man needed to carry 
through such a work. As dissimulating as Louis the 
Eleventh, passionate as Henry the Eighth, brave as Francis 
the First, persevering as Charles the Fifth and magnificent 
as Leo the Tenth, he had all the vices that make private life 
sombre and all the virtues that make public life brilliant. 
Therefore his family was unhappy and his people happy. 

Cosmo was one of the most learned men of his time. 
Among other things he knew a great number of plants and 
the places where they grew, where they lived the longest, 
where they had the strongest scent, where they produced 
the most beautiful flowers, or bore the finest fruits, and 



PALAZZO VECCHIO 47 

what were their virtues for curing the diseases or wounds 
of men and animals ; then, as he was an excellent chemist, 
with the plants, he made waters, essences, oils, medica- 
ments, and balms, and gave his remedies to all who asked 
for them whether they were rich or poor, Tuscan subjects 
or foreigners, inhabitants of Florence or any other part of 
Europe. Cosmo loved and protected letters. In 1541 he 
founded the Florentine Academy which he called his " very 
dear and happy Academy " : Plutarch and Dante were read 
and commented on there. The sessions were first held in 
the Via Larga Palace and afterwards, so that it might have 
more ease and freedom, he gave it the great council-room 
in the Palazzo Vecchio. After the fall of the republic this 
great hall had become useless. 

Cosmo was an artist and it was not his fault if he ar- 
rived at the moment when great men were departing. Of 
all that brilliant galaxy that had illuminated the reigns of 
Julius the Second and Leo the Tenth, Michelangelo alone 
remained. He did everything he could to get the latter : 
he sent a cardinal and an embassy offering him any sum of 
money he might name, the title of senator and any office 
he wished ; but Paul the Third kept him and would not 
give him up. Then, in default of the Florentine giant, he 
gathered together the best he could find. Ammanato, his 
engineer, built for him the fine bridge of the Trinity after 
the plans of Michelangelo, and carved for him the marble 
Neptune in the Palazzo Vecchio Square. He made Baccio 
Bandinelli produce the statues of Pope Clement the 
Seventh, Duke Alexander, Giovanni de' Medici, his father, 



48 



PALAZZO VECCHIO 



and his own statue ; the Loggia of the Mercato Nuovo and 
the choir of the Cathedral. Benvenuto Cellini was recalled 
from France to cast his Perseus in bronze, to carve agate 
cups and to engrave gold medals for him. Then as there 
had been found in the environs of Arezzo a lot of little 
bronze figures, some of which lacked the head, others the 
hands, and others the feet, Cosmo cleaned them himself 
and carefully removed the rust so that they might not be 
damaged. 

By means of his chemical researches, Cosmo, with 
Francesco Ferruci of Fiesole, recovered the art of cutting 
porphyry, which had been lost since Roman times. 

Lastly, he brought together in the Via Larga and Pitti 
Palaces all the pictures, statues and medals, whether ancient 
or modern, that had been painted, carved, engraved or dis- 
covered in excavations by Cosmo the Elder, Lorenzino, and 
Duke Alexander, and that had twice been pillaged and dis- 
persed : — first, when Charles VIIL passed through, and 
again at the assassination of Duke Alexander by Lorenzino. 

Therefore the praise of his contemporaries outweighed 
the blame of posterity : the dark side of his life was lost in 
the brilliant side, and people forget that this protector of 
art, science and literature slew one son, poisoned one 
daughter and violated another. 

We see then that there was something of both Augustus 
and Tiberius in Cosmo L 

Now let us return to the hall of the Palazzo Vecchio. 
The picture, not the most remarkable from an artistic point 
of view, but certainly the most extraordinary as a recorded 



PALAZZO VECCHIO 49 

fact, is one by Ligozzi representing the reception given by 
Boniface VIII. to twelve ambassadors of twelve powers, 
who were all found to be Florentines ; so incontestable 
throughout the world was the political genius of the Mag- 
nificent Republic during the Thirteenth and Fourteenth 
Centuries. 

These twelve ambassadors were : 

Muciato Franzizi for the King of France. 

Ugolino di Vicchio for the King of England. 

Raniere Langru for the King of Bohemia. 

Vermiglio Alfani for the King of the Germans. 

Simone Rossi for Rasca. 

Bernardo Ervai for the Lord of Verona. 

Guicardo Bastai for the Khan of Tartary. 

Manno Fronte for the King of Naples. 

Guido Tabanca for the King of Sicily. 

Lapo Farinata des Uberti for Pisa. 

Gino di Dietaselvi for the lord of Camerino. 

Bencivenni Folchi for the Grand Master of the Hospital 
of Jerusalem. 

It was this strange gathering that made Boniface VIII. 
say that a fifth element had come into the world, and that 
the Florentines constituted this element. 

The enormous frescoes that cover the walls, as well as 
all the pictures on the ceiling, are by Vasari. The frescoes 
represent the wars of the Florentines against Siena and 
Pisa. It was for the latter that Michelangelo prepared 
those beautiful cartoons that disappeared without any one 
knowing what had become of them. 



50 



PALAZZO VECCHIO 



In the other chambers of the palace, which are the liv- 
ing-rooms, there are also a considerable number of paint- 
ings of almost the same period. One exception is a 
charming little chapel by Rodolfo Guirlandaio, the re- 
strained and religious execution of which forms a strange 
contrast to the facile and pagan painting of the beginning 
of the Decadence. 

Entirely upset as it was by the arrangements of Cosmo 
I., the Palazzo Vecchio yet materially preserves one mem- 
ory of the Republic: this is the Barberia Tower in which 
Cosmo the Elder was confined, and at the door of which, 
later during the Pazzi conspiracy, the brave standard- 
bearer, Cesare Petrucci, mounted guard with a spit. In 
this tower, Cosmo the Elder spent what were certainly the 
four worst days of his long life, the fear of being poisoned 
by his enemies preventing him from taking any nourish- 
ment. 



KENSINGTON PALACE 

LEIGH HUNT 

T is not improbable that Kensington Palace and 
Gardens originated in the royal nursery established in 
this district, for the benefit of his children, by King Henry 
the Eighth. If so, here Queen Elizabeth grew up awhile, 
as well as Queen Victoria, and here health was in vain at- 
tempted to be given to the sicklier temperaments of 
Edward the Sixth, who died young, and his sister. Queen 
Mary, who lived only to be an unhappy bigot. 

As the circumstance, however, does not appear ascer- 
tainable, antiquaries must put up with the later and less 
illustrious origin which has been found for these dis- 
tinguished premises, in the house and grounds belonging to 
the family of the Finches, Earls of Nottingham, whether 
the tenement which they occupied had once been royal or 
not, it seems to have been but a small mansion in their 
time; probably consisting of nothing more than the now 
least-visible portion of it north-west ; and indeed, though it 
was subsequently enlarged under almost every one of the 
sovereigns by whom it was occupied, it was never, in one 
respect, anything but what it is still, namely, one of the 
plainest and least pretending of princely abodes. 

In vain we are told, that Wren is supposed to have 



^2 KENSINGTON PALACE 

built the south front, and Kent (a man famous in his time) 
the east front. We can no more get up any enthusiasm 
about it as a building, than if it were a box, or a piece of 
cheese. But it possesses a Dutch solidity ; it can be 
imagined full of English comfort; it is quiet; it is a good 
air; and though it is a palace, no tragical history is con- 
nected with it; all which considerations give it a sort of 
homely, fireside character, which seems to represent the 
domestic side of royalty itself, and thus renders an in- 
teresting service to what is not always so well recommended 
by cost and splendour. Windsor Castle is a place to re- 
ceive monarchs in ; Buckingham Palace to see fashion in ; 
Kensington Palace seems a place to drink tea in ; and this 
is by no means a state of things, in which the idea of 
royalty comes least home to the good wishes of the sub- 
jects. The reigns that flourished here, appositely enough 
to this notion of the building, were all tea-drinking reigns 
— at least, on the part of the ladies ; and if the present 
queen does not reign there, she was born and bred there, 
growing up quietly under the care of a domestic mother; 
during which time, the pedestrian, as he now goes quietly 
along the gardens, fancies no harsher sound to have been 
heard from the Palace windows, than the " tuning of the 
tea-things," or the sound of a piano-forte. 

We may thus, in imagination, see the house and the 
gardens growing larger with each successive proprietor. 
First, there is Heneage Finch, the Speaker of the House 
of Commons, at the accession of Charles the First ; for he 
is the earliest occupant we can discover. 



KENSINGTON PALACE 



53 



This gentleman possessed but fifteen acres of ground ; 
which his son, Sir Heneage Finch, afterwards Earl of 
Nottingham, increased by a grant that was made him out 
of Hyde Park. To the Earl's son and heir, Daniel, 
succeeded King William the Third, who bought the house 
and grounds of Daniel, and enlarged them both, the latter 
to the extent of twenty-six acres. Anne added thirty 
acres ; Queen Caroline, wife of George the Second, added 
three hundred; and the house, which had been growing all 
this time, was finally brought to its present size or appear- 
ance by the late Duke of Sussex, who added or rebuilt the 
rooms, with their still fresh-looking brick-work, that form 
the angle on the south-west. 

The house nominally possesses gardens that are miles in 
circumference ; but these having become public every day 
in the week, which in the early times of the Georges was 
not the case, it has, in reality, to any sequestered purpose 
of enjoyment, no gardens at all, except at one corner. 

The gardens in the time of the Finches consisted of 
little but the ground squaring with the north side of the 
Palace, laid out in the first formal and sombre style of our 
native gardening, and originating the still existing circle of 
yew trees, a disposition of things congenial with the own- 
ers. Heneage Finch, the Speaker, and his sons, the first 
and second Earls of Nottingham, were all lawyers and 
statesmen ; and though a clever, and upon the whole, a 
worthy, appear to have been a melancholy race. The first 
Earl suffered under a long depression of spirits before he 
died ; the second was a man of so atrabilarious a complex- 



54 



KENSINGTON PALACE 



ion that he was nicknamed Dismal ; and Dismal's son, 
from a like swarthy appearance, and the way in which he 
neglected his dress, was called the chimney-sweep. Han- 
bury Williams, the reigning lampooner of the days of 
George the Second, designated the whole race as the 
"black funereal Finches." 

These unusual " Finches of the Grove," made way for 
a kind of Jupiter's bird in the eagle-nosed, hawk-eyed, 
gaunt little William the Third ; a personage as formal and 
melancholy as themselves, though not so noisy (for Dismal, 
notwithstanding his formality, was a great talker) ; and 
under William, the Gardens though they grew larger, did 
but exchange English formality for Dutch. The walks 
became longer and straighter, like canals ; the yews were 
restrained and clipped ; there was, perhaps, a less number 
of flowers, comparatively ; for the English had always been 
fond of flowers, and the Dutch had not yet grown mad 
(commercially) for tulips; in short, William the Third 
with a natural love for his Dutch home, made the palace 
and gardens look as much like it as he could. 

And his Court, for the most part, was as gloomy as the 
gardens; for William was not fond of his new subjects; 
did not choose to converse with them ; and was seldom 
visible but to his Dutch friends. Yet here were occasion- 
ally to be seen some of the liveliest wits and courtiers that 
have left a name in history, forsakers, indeed, of reserved 
and despotic King James, rather than enthusiasts for the 
equally reserved and hardly less power-loving King William, 
who had become, however, by the force of circumstances. 



KENSINGTON PALACE 



55 



the instrument for securing freedom. Here came the 
Earl of Dorset, Prior's friend, who had been one of the 
wits of the Court of Charles the Second; Prior, himself, 
who had stirred William's Dutch phlegm so agreeably as to 
be made one of the gentlemen of his bedchamber; Con- 
greve, whose plays Queen Mary admired ; Halifax, a minor 
wit, but no mean statesman ; Sir William Temple, who 
combined public with private life to so high a degree of 
wisdom and elegance ; Swift (probably) then a young man, 
whom Sir William made use of in his communications with 
the king ; Burnet, the gossiping historian, sometimes wrong- 
headed, but generally right-hearted, whose officious zeal for 
the Revolution had made him a bishop ; the Earl of 
Devonshire, whose nobler zeal had made him a duke, one 
of a family remarkable for their constant and happy com- 
bination of popular politics with all the graces of their 
rank ; Lord Monmouth, afterwards the famous, restless 
Earl of Peterborough, friend of Swift and Pope, conqueror 
of Spain, and lover, at the age of seventy, of Lady Suffolk ; 
Sheffield, afterwards Duke of Buckinghamshire, a minor 
wit and poet, in love with (the rank of) the Princess Anne ; 
and last, not least in anything, but good -breeding, and a 
decent command over his passions, Peter the Great, semi- 
barbarian, the premature freer of Russian pseudo-civiliza- 
tion, who came to England in order to import the art of 
ship-building into his dominions, in his own proper me- 
chanical person, and out of the five months which he spent 
here, passed a good many days out of one of them in in- 
terchanging visits with King William at Kensington. 



^6 KENSINGTON PALACE 

The only distinct personal anecdote recorded of William 
the Third in connection with Kensington will remind the 
reader of similar paternal stories of Agesilaus and others. 

A tap was heard one day, at his closet door, while his 
secretary was in attendance. 

" Who is there ? " said the king. 

" Lord Buck," answered the little voice of a child of 
four years of age. It was Lord Buckhurst, the son of his 
Majesty's lord high chamberlain, the Earl of Dorset. 

" And what does Lord Buck want ? " returned William, 
opening the door. 

" You to be a horse to my coach," rejoined the little 
magnate. " I've wanted you a long time." 

William smiled upon his little friend, with an amiable- 
ness which the secretary had never before thought his 
countenance capable of expressing, and taking the string of 
the toy in his hand, dragged it up and down the long gal- 
lery till his playfellow was satisfied. 

The Court and Gardens of Kensington were not livelier 
in Queen Anne's time than in that of King William. 
Anne, as we have seen at Campden House, was a dull 
woman with a dull husband. They had little to say for 
themselves ; their greatest pleasures were in eating and 
drinking ; the Oueen was absurdly found of etiquette ; 
and as there was nothing to startle decorum in the court 
morals, the mistress in King William's time had given 
something of a livelier stir to the gossip. Swift describes 
Anne in a circle of twenty visitors as sitting with her fan 
in her mouth, saying about three words once a minute to 



KENSINGTON PALACE 57 

some that were near her, and then upon hearing that 
dinner was ready, going out. In the evening she played at 
cards; which, long before, and afterwards, was the usual 
court pastime at that hour. 

She does not appear to have been fond of music, or pic- 
tures, or books, or anything but what administered to the 
commonest animal satisfactions, or which delivered her 
mind at all other times from its tendency to irresolution and 
tedium. 

Addison and Steele might have been occasionally seen at 
her Kensington levees among the Whigs ; and Swift, 
Prior, and Bolingbroke among the Tories. Marlborough 
would be there also ; ever courtly and smiling, whether he 
was victorious as general and as the favourite Duchess's 
husband, or only bowing the more obsequiously alas ! for 
fear of losing his place and his perquisites. 

Anne enlarged the Gardens, but she did not improve the 
style of gardening. Addison in a paper of the Spectator^ 
written during the last year but one of her reign, catching 
the last glimpse of a variation, speaks with rapture of the 
conversation of a disused gravel-pit, which had been left 
remaining, into a cultivated dell ; but it would seem as 
if this exploit on the part of the gardeners was rather in 
the hope of making the best of what they considered a bad 
thing, than intended as an advance towards something 
better ; for they laid out the Queen's additional acres in 
the same formal style as King William's. 

Long, straight gravel-walks, and clipped hedges, pre-, 
vailed throughout, undiversified with the present mixture of 



58 



KENSINGTON PALACE 



freer growing wood. An alcove or two, still existing, were 
added ; and Anne exerted herself to build a long kind of 
out-house, which still remains; and which she intended, it 
is said, for the balls and suppers which certainly took place 
in it ; though we suspect, from the narrowness of its con- 
struction, it never was designed for anything but what it is, 
a green-house. 

These most probably constituted all those " elegancies 
of art," with which a writer of the time gives her credit for 
improving the Gardens. Such, at any rate, was the case 
in the more public portions of them ; and if the private 
ones enjoyed any others, we may guess what they were, 
from Pope's banter of the horticultural fashions of the day, 
in a paper which he contributed to the Guardian^ the year 
after the appearance of that of Addison's in the Spectator. 
The following is a taste of them. The poet is giving a 
catalogue of plants that were to be disposed of by auction : 

" Adam and Eve in yew ; Adam a little shattered by the 
fall of the Tree of Knowledge in the great storm ; Eve and 
the Serpent very flourishing. 

" St. George in box ; his arm scarce long enough, but 
will be in a condition to stick the Dragon by next April. 

"An old Maid of Honour in wormwood. 

" A topping Ben Jonson in laurel. 

" A quick-set hog, shot up into a porcupine, by its being 
forgot a week in rainy weather." 

The Kensington Gardens were popular throughout the 
whole of the three Georges' reign, but flourished most, as 
far as names and fashions are concerned, in those of the 



KENSINGTON PALACE 



59 



first and second. The space of time includes half a cen- 
tury ; and Walpole, Lady Suffolk, Beau Nash, and Colley 
Gibber, lived through it all ; the two last from a much 
earlier period, and Walpole into a much later one, down to 
the French Revolution. At the beginning of it, Lady 
Mary Wortley Montague, with the wits of the Kit-Cat 
club about her, may be considered as having been the 
reigning belle of the promenaders ; to her, succeeded the 
Bellendens and Lepells, with the same wits grown older ; 
then came Lady Townshend, with the new wits, Horace 
Walpole, Selwyn, Hanbury Williams, and others ; and then 
crowds were alternately drawn by the " Chudleigh " and 
the Miss Gunnings. 

With the decease of George the Second, glory departed 
from Kensington as far as Courts were concerned. No 
reigning sovereign has resided there since George the 
Third, who inheriting, perhaps, a dislike of the place from 
his father, the Prince of Wales, appears to have taken no 
notice of it, except in appointing the clever, but impudent 
quack. Sir John Hill, its gardener, at the recommendation 
of Sir John's then omnipotent brother botanist, the Earl of 
Bute. 

George the Fourth probably regarded the place as a 
homely concern, quite out of his line. It might suit well 
enough the book-collecting inclinations of his brother, the 
Duke of Sussex, with which he had no sympathy ; was not 
amiss as a means of affording a lodging to his brother, the 
Duke of Kent, with whose habits of regularity, and par- 
donable amount of debt, his sympathies were as little j and 



6o KENSINGTON PALACE 

lastly he was well content to think, that the staid-looking 
house and formal gardens rendered the spot a good out-of- 
the-way sort of place enough, for obscuring the growth and 
breeding of his niece, and probable heiress, the Princess 
Victoria, whose life, under the guidance of a wise mother, 
promised to furnish so estimable a contrast to his own. 
As to his brother. King William the Fourth, though he too 
was a brother, in most respects, very different from him- 
self, we never heard his name mentioned in any way what- 
ever in connection with Kensington. 

Adieu then, for the present, and for we know not how 
long a time hereafter, to Court-holdings in the Palace; to 
Court splendours, and Court scandals. Adieu Kings listen- 
ing in closets, and Oueens calumniated by ungrateful biog- 
raphers. Adieu even Maids of Honour. They departed 
their life with George the Second, and went to live a ter- 
ribly dull one with his grandson's Oueen, Charlotte, who 
nearly tired Miss Burney into a consumption. 



THE MIKADO'S PALACE 

PIERRE LOTI 

AN enclosure of large walls. My djin stop in front of 
a first gateway in the ancient severe and religious 
style: massive columns with bases of bronze; a narrow 
frieze sculptured with strange ornaments ; and a heavy 
and enormous roof. 

Then I walk into the vast deserted courtyards, planted 
with venerable trees, to the branches of which they have 
given props like crutches for old men. The immense 
buildings of the palace first appear to me in a kind of 
disorder wherein I can discern no plan of unity. Every- 
where appear these high, monumental and heavy roofs, 
whose corners turn up in Chinese curves and bristle with 
black ornaments. 

Not seeing anyone, I walk on at random. 

Here is arrested absolutely the smile, inseparable from 
modern Japan. I have the impression of entering into the 
silence of an incomprehensible Past, into the dead splendour 
of a civilization, whose architecture, design, and aesthetic 
taste are to me strange and unknown. 

A bonze guard who sees me, advances, and, making a 
bow, asks me for my name and passport. 

It is satisfactory : he will take me himself to see the 



62 THE MIKADO'S PALACE 

entire palace on condition that I will take off my shoes and 
remove my hat. He brings me even velvet sandals which 
are offered to visitors. Thanks, I prefer to walk with bare 
feet like himself and we begin our silent walk through an 
interminable series of halls all lacquered in gold and deco- 
rated with a rare and exquisite strangeness. 

On the floor there is always and everywhere that eternal 
spread of white matting, that one finds just as simple, as 
well kept, and as neat in the homes of the emperors, in the 
temples, and among the middle classes and the poor. No 
furniture anywhere, for this is something unknown in Japan, 
or slightly known at most ; the palace is entirely empty. 
All the surprising magnificence is upon the walls and ceil- 
ings. The precious golden lacquer is displayed uniformly 
on all sides, and upon this background, Byzantine in effect, 
all the celebrated artists of the great Japanese century have 
painted inimitable objects. Each hall has been decorated 
by a different and illustrious painter, whose name the bonze 
cited to me with respect. In one there are all the known 
flowers ; in another, all the birds of the air, and all the 
beasts of the earth ; or perhaps hunting-scenes and com- 
bats, where you see warriors dressed in armour and ter- 
rifying helmets, on horseback pursuing monsters and 
chimaeras. The most peculiar one, assuredly, is decorated 
entirely with fans, — fans of all forms and of all colours, 
open, shut, and half open, thrown with extreme grace upon 
the fine golden lacquer. The ceilings, also of golden lac- 
quer are in compartments, painted with the same care and 
the same art. What is, perhaps, the most marvellous of 



THE MIKADO'S PALACE 



63 



all, is that series of high pierced friezes that extends 
around all the ceilings ; you think of generations of patient 
workmen who have worn themselves out in chiselling such 
delicate, almost transparent, things, in such thicknesses of 
wood : sometimes there are rosebushes, sometimes en- 
tanglements of wistaria, or sheaves of rice ; elsewhere 
flights of storks that seem to cleave the air with great 
velocity, forming with their thousands of claws, extended 
necks, and feathers, a crowd so beautifully combined that 
it is alive and scurrying away, nothing lags behind, nor falls 
into confusion. 

In this palace, which is windowless, it is dusky, — a half- 
darkness favourable to enchantments. The greater number 
of these halls receive a shimmering light from the outside 
verandas composed only of lacquered columns, to which 
they are entirely open on one side ; it is the subdued light 
of deep sheds, or of markets. The more mysterious in- 
terior apartments open on the first by other similar col- 
umns, and receive from it a still more attenuated light ; 
they can be shut at will by bamboo curtains of an ex- 
treme delicacy, whose tissue in its transparency imitates 
that of a wave, and which are raised to the ceiling by 
enormous tassels of red silk. Communication is had by 
species of doorways the forms of which are unusual and 
unexpected : sometimes they are perfect circles and some- 
times they are more complicated figures, such as hexagons 
or stars. And all these secondary openings have frame- 
works of black lacquer which stand out with an elegant dis- 
tinction upon the general background of the gold, and 



64 



THE MIKADO'S PALACE 



which bear upon the corners ornaments of bronze marvel- 
lously chiselled by the metal-workers of the past. 

The centuries have embellished this palace, veiling a 
little the glitter of the objects by blending all these har- 
monies of gold in a kind of very gentle shadow ; in its 
silence and solitude one might call it the enchanted dwell- 
ing of some Sleeping Beauty^ of a princess of an unknown 
world, or of a planet that could not be our own. 

We pass before some little interior gardens, which are, 
according to the Japanese custom, miniature reductions of 
very wild places, — unlooked-for contrasts in the centre of 
this golden palace. Here also time has passed, throwing 
its emerald upon the little rocks, the tiny lakes, and the 
small abysses ; sterilizing the little mountains, and giving 
an appearance of reality to all that is minute and artificial. 
The trees, dwarfed by I know not what Japanese proc- 
ess, have not grown larger; but they have taken on an air 
of extreme old age. The cytu^ have acquired many 
branches, because of their hundreds of years ; one would 
call the little palms of multiple trunks, antidiluvian plants; 
or rather massive black candelabra, whose every arm carries 
at its extremity a fresh bouquet of green plumes. 

What also surprises us is the special apartment chosen 
by this Taiko-Sama, who was both a great conqueror and a 
great emperor. It is very small and very simple, and looks 
upon the tiniest and the most artificial of the little gardens. 

The Reception Hall, which they showed me last of all, 
is the largest and the most magnificent. It is about fifty 
metres long, and, naturally, all in golden lacquer, with a 



THE MIKADO'S PALACE 65 

high and marvellous frieze. Always no furniture ; nothing 
but the stages of lacquer upon which the handsome lords 
on arriving placed their arms. At the back, behind a 
colonnade, is the platform, where Taiko-Sama held his audi- 
ences, at the period of our Henri IV. Then it is that 
one dreams of these receptions, of these entrances of 
brilliant noblemen, whose helmets are surmounted by 
horns, snouts and grotesque figures ; and all the unheard-of 
ceremonial of this court. One may dream of all this, 
but he will no*- clearly see it revive. Not only is the 
period too remote, but it is too far away in grade among 
the races of the earth ; it is too far outside of our con- 
ceptions and the notions that we have inherited regard- 
ing these things. It is the same in the old temples of 
this country ; we look at them without understanding, the 
symbols escape us. Between Japan and ourselves the dif- 
ference of origin has ir -"e a deep abyss. 

"We shall cross another hall," the bonze said to me, 
" and then a series of passages that will lead us to the tem- 
ple of the palace." 

In this last hall there are some people, which is a sur- 
prise, as all the former ones were empty ; but silence dwells 
there just the same. The men squatting all around the 
walls seem very busy writing ; they are priests copying 
prayers with tiny pencils on rice-paper to sell to the people. 
Here, upon the golden background of the walls, all the 
paintings represent royal tigers, a little larger than their 
natural size, in all attitudes of fury ; of watching, of the 
hunt, of prowling, or of sleep. Above these motionless 



66 THE MIKADO'S PALACE 

bonzes they lift their great heads, so expressive and 
wicked, showing their sharp teeth. 

My guide bows on entering. As I am among the most 
polite people in the world, I feel obliged to bow also. Then 
the reverence that is accorded to me passes all along the 
hall, and we go through. 

Passages obstructed with manuscripts and bales of pray- 
ers are passed, and we are in the temple. It is, as I ex- 
pected, of great magnificence. Walls, ceilings, columns, 
all is in golden lacquer, the high frieze representing leaves 
and bunches of enormous peonies very full-blown and 
sculptured with so much skill that they seem ready to drop 
their leaves at the least breath to fall in a golden shower 
upon the floor. Behind a colonnade, in the darkest place, 
are the idols and emblems, in the midst of all the rich col- 
lection of sacred vases, incense-burners, and torch-bearers. 

Just now it is the hour of Buddhist service. In one of 
the courts, a gong, with the deep tones of a double- 
bass, begins to strike with extreme deliberation. Some 
bonzes in robes of black gauze with green surplices make 
a ritualistic entrance, the passes of which are very com- 
plicated, and then they go and kneel in the centre of the 
sanctuary. There are very few of the faithful ; scarcely 
two or three groups, which seem lost in this great temple. 
There are some women lying on the matting, having brought 
their little smoking-boxes and their little pipes ; they are 
talking in very low voices and smothering the desire to 
laugh. 

However, the gong begins to sound more rapidly and the 



THE MIKADO'S PALACE 67 

priests to make low bows to their gods. It sounds still 
faster, and the bows of the bonzes quicken, while the 
priests prostrate themselves upon their faces upon the earth. 

Then, in the mystic regions something happens that re- 
minds me very much of the elevation of the host in the 
Roman cult. Outside, the gong, as if exasperated, sounds 
with rapid strokes, uninterruptedly and frantically. 

I believe that I have seen everything now in this palace ; 
but I still do not understand the disposition of the halls, 
the plan of the whole. If alone, I should soon become 
lost in it, as if in a labyrinth. 

Happily, my guide comes to take me out, after having 
put my shoes on me himself. Across new halls of silence, 
passing by an old and gigantic tree, which has miraculous 
properties, it seems, having for several centuries protected 
this palace from fire, he conducts me through the same 
gate by which I entered and where my djin are waiting 
for me. 



WARWICK CASTLE 

LADY WARWICK 

THE character of ancient buildings, the various styles 
of architecture which they present to us, their 
beauties as well as their blemishes, enable any one whose 
darkness may be lightened by the diviner radiance of a 
happy power of imagination to recall the persons and the 
events with which these buildings have been associated. 
The gloomy feudal fortress carries the mind back to the 
Middle Ages ; the abbey, with its cloisters and windows 
and all the surroundings of a dim religious light, reminds 
us T'f 'lays when the Head of the Church was indeed 
Christ's Vicar here upon earth ; while the palace suggests, 
side by side with its stories of games played at that great 
game in which men are but as pawns, pictures of gallant 
gentlemen and fair ladies who, though being dead, yet live 
before us. England is not so rich in these varied combina- 
tions of palace, abbey, and tower as is France, for instance, 
and particularly Touraine. Many of our most famous 
mediaeval castles have been suffered to fall into decay, or, 
worse still, have been improved into modern shape by the 
rash hand of idle innovators. 

There is one among our castles, however, which neither 
Time's defacing fingers nor man's innovating hand has de- 
spoiled — Warwick Castle. 



WARWICK CASTLE 69 

Possibly there is no place of this sort so well known to 
the whole English world over, situated as it is within that 
Shakespeare country from which proceeded those melodious 
sounds that yet fill the world. It has always been the 
Mecca of the best and noblest of literary pilgrims from 
America. Nearly half a century ago Nathaniel Haw- 
thorne wrote for an American magazine a series of sketches, 
in one of which, entitled " About Warwick," he tells us 
how " through the vista of willows that droop on either 
side into the water we behold the grey magnificence of 
Warwick Castle uplifting itself among stately trees and 
rearing its turrets above their loftiest branches. We can 
scarcely think the scene real, so completely do the 
machicolated towers, the long line of battlements, the 
massive buttresses, the high-windowed walls, shape out our 
indistinct ideas of the antique time." 

After all a castle, even so famous a one as Warwick, is 
not so interesting in itself as the scenes it has witnessed 
and the people who have lived in it or have visited it. The 
history of Warwick Castle, for the last three hundred and 
fifty years at least, has been no small part of the history of 
England. Personal and local history in England does not 
so much begin with the Reformation as it does in other 
countries ; but this one thing is certain, that between the 
pre-Reformation world and ourselves there is a great gulf 
fixed which the historian has tried in vain to bridge. Not 
that the place before that could have been devoid of inter- 
est : no castle in the stormy times of the Wars of the 
Roses could have enjoyed the happiness of having no his- 



70 



WARWICK CASTLE 



tory ; and, surely, if any did, Warwick was not one of them. 
Its very position, situated in the heart of England, must, 
from the time when the Great Alfred's daughter built the 
keep (" the monument of the wisdom and energy of the 
mighty Ethelfleda "), have been such that, in all the nu- 
merous brawls and butcheries dignified by the name of civil 
war, the possession of it must have been a matter of su- 
preme importance. And so it was nearly four centuries 
before the outbreak of the Wars of the Roses that William 
the Conqueror had made Warwick the base of his opera- 
tions for his campaign in the North. The fortress he built 
there has gone — not one stone left upon another, and so 
utterly perished that the very site of it is pure guess-work. 
The legendary Guy and all his feats may be dismissed 
from any account which makes any pretence to be histori- 
cal. There is a curious account of the garrison of War- 
wick Castle in the time of Henry II., when all his legit- 
imate sons were in arms against him, and the two illegit- 
imate sons of Fair Rosamond alone remained faithful. It 
was occupied for the King; and the sheriff's account ren- 
dered for the victualling of the place was this: "xi, //'. xiii. 
d. for 20 quarters of Bread Corn ; xx. s. for 20 quarters 
of Malt J c. s. for 50 Biefs salted up ; xxx. s. for 90 
cheeses ; and xx. s. for salt then laid in for the victualling 
thereof." 

Of the importance of Warwick Castle in the Middle 
Ages we can well form an idea from Dugdale's state- 
ment : — 

*' Of what regard it was in those times may be discerned 



WARWICK CASTLE 



71 



by the King's precept to the Archbishop of York, for re- 
quiring good security of Margery, sister and heir to 
Thomas, then Earl of Warwick, that she should not take 
to husband any person whatsoever in whom the said 
King could not repose trust as in his own self: the chief 
reason being given in these words, ' Because she has a 
Castle of immense strength, and situated towards the 
Marshes.' " 

No mention of Warwick Castle would be complete if it 
left out the famous Earl—" the King-Maker," and the 
" Last of the Barons." Never was the " Bear and Ragged 
Staff" held in such high esteem as between 1455 and 1470. 
And when, a few years after the King-Maker's death, 
the avaricious Henry VII. annexed his various manors to 
the Crown, he got possession of over a hundred of them, 
to say nothing of the whole of the Channel Islands. A 
contemporary tells us that " at the Earl's house in London 
six oxen were usually eaten at breakfast, and every tavern 
was full of his meat, for he that had any acquaintance in 
his family should have as much sodden — i. e.^ boiled — as 
he could carry on a long dagger." 

The Castle had remained for a very considerable period 
in the possession of the successive earls. It next passed to 
the ill-starred George, Duke of Clarence, and upon his 
death, "being seized into the King's hands, it continued 
in the Crown a great while." 

When the famous John Dudley became Earl of War- 
wick, the Castle was granted to him, as well as divers lands 
which had belonged to former earls. Of his fate in con- 



72 



WARWICK CASTLE 



nection with the unhappy Lady Jane Grey there is no need 
to speak here. The Castle and all his estates, upon his 
attainder, escheated to the Crown. Thanks to the favour 
with which Robert Dudley, better known as the Earl of 
Leicester, was regarded by Queen Elizabeth, his brother 
Ambrose received from that queen a grant of Warwick 
Castle, together with the dignities of Earl of Warwick and 
Baron de I'lsle, in 1561. Three years later his brother 
Robert became Earl of Leicester. 

There were other subjects beside Lord Burghley who 
groaned inwardly under " the extraordinary chardg in 
Enterteynment of the Queen." Elizabeth had more than 
the ordinary passion of the time for " rich shews, pleasant 
devices and all manner of sports that could be devised." 
Notwithstanding the extent of her various progresses east 
and west and north and south, there seemed to be always 
something freshly arranged for her entertainment. In 
1572 on her way to Kenilworth, she stayed at Warwick, 
and visited the Earl of Warwick at the Castle she had 
granted him eleven years before. She came to Warwick 
"on the 1 2th day of August, after dinner, about three of 
the clock, with the Countess in the same coach." 

Evelyn, as the author of Siha well might do, did not 
think much of the gardens in 1654. To bring them to 
perfection was reserved for that luckless of the heads of the 
Grevilles, George, the second Baron, who " planned the 
park by his taste and planted the trees with his hand." 
The second son, Robert, who became the fourth Lord 
Brooke, was one of the six lords sent by the House of 



WARWICK CASTLE 73 

Peers, together with twelve of the members of the House 
of Commons, to present to Charles II. at the Hague, " the 
humble invitation and supplication of the Parliament : 
That His Majesty would be pleased to return and take the 
government of the Kingdom into his own hands." He 
was made Recorder of Warwick, and being a great traveller 
added much to the embellishment of the Castle. It was to 
him that the fitting up of the state apartments is due, and 
he worthily continued to follow in the footsteps of his pred- 
ecessors in the title. His successors from one generation 
to another took pride above everything else in the adorn- 
ment and beautification of their castle. In 1746 the 
eighth Baron was created Earl Brooke, and in the last year 
of the reign of George II. the Earldom of Warwick, which 
had been conferred in 16 18 on the family of Rich, becom- 
ing extinct, devolved upon Lord Brooke. The son of this 
first Earl of Warwick was one of the most reckless of all 
connoisseurs, and Warwick Castle is indebted to him for 
many valuable gems which his uncle. Sir William Hamil- 
ton, collected. Many of the finest specimens of artistic 
work at Warwick bear testimony to his taste, but the en- 
largement and improvement of the grounds about the Castle 
are his special work, and he expended over ^100,000 in 
beautifying the interior of his home. 

The entrance to the Castle consists of a plain embattled 
gateway, leading to a picturesque winding roadway, cut, for 
upwards of a hundred yards, through the solid rock, and 
overhung with shrubs, creepers, and trees. This roadway 
conducts to the outer court, where a grand view of the 



74 WARWICK CASTLE 

outer walls suddenly bursts upon the visitor, the main 
features of which are Guy's Tower on the right, the Gate- 
way in the middle, and Caesar's Tower on the left. 

Guy's Tower, so named in honour of the legendary 
warrior, was built by the second Thomas de Beauchamp 
in the reign of Richard II., being completed in 1394. It 
is twelve-sided, thirty feet in diameter at the base, with 
walls ten feet thick, and rises to a height of a hundred and 
twenty-eight feet. This tower contains five floors, each 
floor having a groined roof and being subdivided into one 
large and two small rooms, the sides of which are pierced 
with numerous loopholes, commanding in various direc- 
tions the curtains which the tower was intended to protect. 
A staircase of a hundred and thirty-three steps leads to the 
summit, which is crowned by a machicolated parapet. The 
vault beneath has been constructed of great strength, ap- 
parently for the purpose of supporting on the roof some 
ponderous and powerful engine, calculated to annihilate 
anything which could be brought against it. The details 
of the Castle can be best observed from this tower, and it 
commands a fine view of the surrounding country, extend- 
ing for many miles. The second-floor chamber, now used 
as a muniment room, was the place of confinement of the 
Earl of Lindsey, who, with his father, was taken prisoner 
at the battle of Edge Hill. 

Caesar's Tower was erected between 1350 and 1370 by 
the first Thomas de Beauchamp, and it is a marvel of con- 
structive skill. It is an irregular polygon, a hundred and 
forty-seven feet in height, containing four stories, each with 



WARWICK CASTLE 75 

a groined roof, and is crowned by a boldly projecting 
machicolation. The part facing outward forms three 
segments of a circle, the general construction being such as 
to constitute it a fortress of the most formidable character. 
It is built on the solid rock, and was therefore impervious to 
the miner. The loopholes throughout are most scientific- 
ally contrived, not being cut in the centre of the merlons in 
each instance, but being pierced in positions commanding 
the most advantageous situations, and being made available 
for the long or crossbow. The lower edges of the loop- 
holes are also sloped at the exact angle requisite to clear the 
gallery below. The archers were securely protected by 
wooden screens, termed mantlets, and by leather curtains, 
as well as by the roofs above them. The sloping base of 
the tower constituted another formidable medium for 
launching missiles against the enemy, being so constructed 
that a stone or metal projectile, launched from the machi- 
colation above, would rebound with a point blank aim into 
the breasts of the attacking force beneath. 

The Gateway was constructed in the Fourteenth Cen- 
tury, and was in ancient times approached by a drawbridge, 
which formerly spanned the moat, but is now replaced by a 
stone arch. On the inner side of this is the Barbican, 
projecting some fifty feet from the wall, and rising two 
stories in height above the archway. It is flanked by two 
octagonal turrets, loopholed for the purpose of defending 
the bridge and its approaches. Within the drawbridge is a 
portcullis, and behind the portcullis are four holes overhead, 
through which blazing pitch, hot lead, or other scarifying 



76 



WARWICK CASTLE 



compounds could be poured on the heads of the as- 
sailants. 

The spacious Inner Court is nearly two acres in extent. 
In front stands the Mound or Keep, studded with trees and 
shrubs, and crossed by the fortifications, in which the 
Northern Tower forms a prominent object. On the right, 
connected by walls of enormous strength, are two incom- 
plete towers, termed the Bear and Clarence Towers, the 
former begun by Richard III., and the latter probably by 
his brother, George, Duke of Clarence. On the left, ex- 
tending to the Hill Tower at the base of the Mound, is 
the inhabited part of the Castle, altered and enlarged at 
various times since it was first built, but with so much 
skill as to be in perfect keeping with the general aspect of 
the whole, 

A fortress is said to have existed here in Roman times ; 
and Ethelfleda, daughter of Alfred the Great, is stated to 
have erected a keep or dungeon on the Mound in the year 
915, and this again is stated to have been enlarged in the 
time of the Conqueror. 

Warwick Castle still stands by itself amongst English 
castles. It not only brings before us the people whom it 
had witnessed itself, from William the Conqueror down to 
Queen Victoria, but it enables us to represent what the ba- 
ronial castles — Kenilworth and a host of others, which have 
fallen into decay — once were : by it we can reconstruct their 
halls and their bowers, their chapels and their dungeons, 
and can reproduce them to ourselves as they were when 
great kings and dukes and lords, who have long since 



WARWICK CASTLE 



11 



crumbled into dust, filled them with their sound and fury, 
which now signifies nothing : we can see the Beauchamps and 
the Nevills and the Plantagenets, and those that went be- 
fore them and those that came after them, pass through its 
galleries in knightly procession : we can be present there 
with Queen Elizabeth and Lord Leicester when all was 
revelry and mirth ; or with the stout old 3ir Edmund Peto, 
in that dark hour when he hung out a cross with a flag 
upon it in defiance of the Papists. As we walk from gal- 
lery to gallery, and from apartment to apartment, we can 
see, as in some splendid and stately museum, everything 
which has beautified and adorned the lives of seven cen- 
turies of English nobles. Over and above all this, we can 
see in Warwick Castle the continuity of English life, ever 
changing but yet ever the same ; and as we view objects 
which illustrate the arts and fashions and tastes and fancies 
of a bygone world, we can feel conscious of the debt we 
owe to those who, mindful of the responsibility bequeathed 
to them, have not been backward in amassing treasures to 
be an " everlasting possession, not a sight to be seen and 
then forgotten." 



XHE ALHAMBRA 
EDMONDO DE AMICIS 

WE arrived before a great gateway that shut in the 
street i Gongora said to me, " Here we are ! " I 
entered. 

I found myself in a great grove of trees of immeasurable 
height inclining towards each other on both sides of a wide 
avenue that ascends the hill and is lost in the shade ; they 
are so close together that a man can pass between them 
with difficulty and wherever you look, you can see nothing 
but trunks so thickly set that they seem to shut in the road 
like a continuous wall. The trees interlace their branches 
above the avenue ; not a ray of sunlight can penetrate the 
wood; the shade is dense, and from every side the rivulets 
murmur and the nightingales sing. You breathe here the 
freshness of spring. 

"We are already in the Alhambra," Gongora said to 
me, " turn around and you will see the towers and the em- 
battled walls of the enclosure." 

" But where is the palace ? " I asked. 

" That is a secret," he answered, " let us walk on at 
random." 

We advanced by an avenue parallel to the great central 
road, and one that wound towards the summit of the hill. 
The trees above our heads formed a roof of verdure that 



THE ALHAMBRA 



79 



hid the sky ; and the grass, the brushwood and the flowers 
made on both sides two charming espaliers of brightness. 

" Here is the gateway ! " cried Gongora. 

I turned around as if I had been pushed, and I saw a 
few steps before me a large square tower, of a sombre red, 
crowned with embattlements, and its door surmounted by a 
horseshoe arch upon which you saw sculptured a key and 
a hand. 

/My guide told me that it was the principal entrance to the 
Alhambra, and that it was called the Gate of Justice, be- 
cause the Arab Kings were accustomed to pronounce their 
sentences beneath that arch. The key means that this 
door is the key to the fortress, and the hand is the symbol 
of the five principal precepts of Islam : Prayer, Fasting, 
Benevolence, Holy War, and Pilgrimage to Mecca. 

We passed under the gate, and continued to ascend by 
an embanked road : finally we came to the top of the hill, 
in the middle of an esplanade surrounded by a parapet and 
set with bushes and flowers. I was standing before a 
great palace in the style of the Renaissance, half in 
ruins and flanked by some small and miserable-looking 
houses. 

We entered through a little doorway, crossed a corridor, 
and found ourselves in a court. 

We were in the patio de los Arraynes (Court of the 
Myrtles), which is the largest in the building, and which 
presents at once the appearance of a court, a hall, and a 
garden. A large rectangular basin, full of water, sur- 
rounded by a hedge of myrtle, extends from one side to the 



8o THE ALHAMBRA 

Other of the patio^ and mirrors the arches, the arabesques, 
and inscriptions of the walls. To the right of the entrance 
are two rows of Moorish arches, placed one upon the 
other, and upheld by light columns ; and on the opposite 
side of the court rises a tower with a door, through which 
may be seen the half-dark interior halls and the tiny twin- 
windows, and beyond the windows the blue sky and the 
peaks of the distant mountains. The walls are ornamented 
up to a certain height with splendid mosaics, and from the 
mosaics upward to the ceiling with arabesques of the most 
delicate design, which seem to scintillate and change at 
every step j and here and there between the arabesques and 
along the arches, Arabic inscriptions comprising salutations, 
sentences, and proverbs wind about and interlace like 
garlands. 

Near the entrance one reads in Kufic characters : " Salva- 
tion eternal ! — Benediction ! — Prosperity ! — Felicity ! — 
Praise be to God for the welfare of Islam ! " 

In another place you see written : " I seek my refuge in 
the God of the Dawn." Elsewhere: "O God, to Thee 
we owe eternal thanks and undying praise ! " 

In other places there are verses from the Koran, and en- 
tire poems in praise of the caliphs. 

We entered the tower called the Tower of Comares, or 
vulgarly, of the Ambassadors. 

The interior of the tower forms two halls ; the first is 
called the Hall of the Boat : some persons say because it is 
shaped like a boat ; others, because it was called by the 
Arabs Hall of the Baraka, or benediction, a word which the 



THE ALHAMBRA 8 1 

ignorant have corrupted into that of boat (bared). This 
hall does not seem of human workmanship ; it is nothing 
but a stupendous interlacing of embroideries in the form 
of garlands, rose-work, branches, and leaves that cover the 
ceiling, the arches, the walls, on all sides, and in every- 
way, crowded together, twisted, in net-work, one upon 
ajiother, and combined in such a manner that they are all 
seen in a single glance and present an astonishing 
magnificence and an enchanting grace. I went up to one 
of the walls, I fastened my gaze at the beginning of an 
arabesque and tried to follow its twistings and windings : 
impossible ! the eye loses itself, the mind becomes con- 
fused, and all the arabesques from the pavement to the 
ceiling seem to move and commingle to make you lose the 
thread of their inextricable net-work. You may make an 
effort not to look around you, concentrate your attention 
upon one little place of the wall, put your very nose in it, 
and trace the design with your finger: it is useless; in one 
minute the patterns become involved, a veil spreads be- 
tween the wall and yourself, and your arm falls. The wall 
seems to you to be woven like a textile, crinkled like 
brocade, of open-work like lace, and veined like a leaf; 
you cannot look at it closely, you cannot fix the design in 
your mind, — that would be like counting the ants in an 
ant-hill. 

After having looked around me a little, Gongora pushed 
me into the great Hall of the Ambassadors, which oc- 
cupies the entire interior of the tower, for the Hall of 
the Barca in reality belongs to a little building, which al- 



v^ 



82 THE ALHAMBRA 

though joined to the tower, is not a part of it. The Hall 
is square, very spacious, and lighted by nine large arched 
windows,' in the form of doors, which present almost the 
aspect of alcoves, so thick are the walls ; and each one 
of them is divided in two by a little column of marble that 
supports two elegant little arches, surmounted in their turn 
by two little arched windows. The walls are covered with 
mosaics and arabesques of an indescribable delicacy and 
variety of form, and innumerable inscriptions that are 
spread out like broad, embroidered ribbons over the arches 
of the windows, in the corners, upon the friezes, and around 
the niches where they placed vases filled with flowers and 
perfumed waters. The ceiling, which is very high, is com- 
posed of pieces of cedar wood, white, gilt, and blue, 
united in the form of circles, stars, and crowns ; it forms 
a number of little domes, cells, and tiny arched windows 
from which a soft light falls ; and from the cornice that 
joins the ceiling to the walls hang bits of stucco cut in 
facets and worked like stalactites and bunches of flowers. 
The throne stood in the centre before the window and 
opposite the door of entrance. From the windows on this 
side, you enjoy a magnificent view of the valley of the 
Darro ; so deep and silent that it seems as if it must be 
fascinated by the majestic Alhambra ; from the windows of 
the two other sides you see the walls of the enclosure and 
the towers of the fortress ; and from the side of the 
entrance, in the distance, the light arches of the Court of 
Myrtles, and the waters of the basin reflecting the azure 
of the sky. 



THE ALHAMBRA 



83 



We left the tower with rapid steps, crossed the Court of 
Myrtles, and came in front of a little door opposite the 
entrance. We went about fifteen steps and stopped. We 
were in the Court of the Lions. If at this moment I had 
been forced to leave just as I had entered, I do not know 
if I could have described what I had seen, A forest of 
columns, a labyrinth of arches and embroideries, an inde- 
finable elegance, an unimaginable delicacy, a prodigious 
richness, and I don't know what that was aerial, trans- 
parent, and undulating, it was like a great pavilion of lace ; 
the appearance of a building that would fall by a breath, a 
variety of lights, perspectives, mysterious shadows, con- 
fusion, a capricious disorder of little things, the majesty of a 
little palace, the gaiety of a kiosk, an amorous grace, an 
extravagance, a delight, a phantasy of a young and passion- 
ate maiden, an angel's dream, a madness, a thing without a 
name ; such is the first effect of the Court of Lions. 

This is a court larger than a great ball-room, rectangular 
in form, with walls as high as one of the little Andalusian 
houses of one story. A light portico runs around it sup- 
ported by graceful little columns of white marble, grouped 
in symmetrical disorder, by twos and threes almost without 
a base so that they seem to be starting from the earth like 
the trunks of trees, and adorned with varied capitals, tall 
and delicate, in the form of little pillars upon which curve 
tiny arches of the most graceful form. These arches seem 
not leaning upon, but suspended over the columns : one 
might call them curtains arranged upon the columns like 
ribbons or floating garlands. From the centre of the 



84 



THE ALHAMBRA 



shortest sides, there advance two groups of columns that 
form two kinds of little square temples, each of nine 
arches, surmounted by a little cupola of many colours. 
The walls of these little temples and the outside wall of the 
portico are a veritable lace-work in stucco ; they are orna- 
mented, embroidered, bordered, cut and perforated from 
one side to the other, transparent as a web, and chang- 
ing in design at your approach ; here, flowers are nestling 
in the arabesques ; there, stars ; and farther away, bucklers, 
squares, and polygonal figures covered with ornaments of 
an infinite delicacy. All this ends in jagged points, in 
festoons, in ribbons fluttering around the arches, in species 
of stalactites, fringes, pear-shaped drops and acorns, that 
seem to undulate with the least breath of air. Long 
Arabic inscriptions run the entire length of the four 
walls, above the arches, upon the capitals, and upon the 
walls of the little temples. In the centre of the court there 
rises a great marble basin, upheld by twelve lions, and sur- 
rounded by a paved canal, from which gush four other 
small canals, that, describing a cross between the four sides 
of the court, cross the portico, dart into the neighbouring 
halls and unite with the other conduits cutting through the 
entire edifice. Behind the two little temples, and in the 
middle of the two other sides, there open suites of halls 
with immense open doorways, that allow you to see the 
dark background upon which the little white columns 
gleam as if they stood before the mouth of a grotto. At 
every step one takes into the court, this forest of columns 
seems to move and disarrange itself to arrange itself in a 



THE ALHAMBRA 85 

new way ; behind a column that seems to stand alone, two, 
three, or sometimes a file of them, will show themselves ; 
others will disappear, others will approach each other, and 
others will separate; in looking into the depths of one of 
these halls, you see everything change : the arches on the 
opposite side seem to be far away ; the columns seem out 
of place, the little temples assume another form ; you see 
through the very walls, you discover new arches and new 
columns, here in the bright sunlight, there in the shadow, 
elsewhere half illuminated by the soft light that passes 
through the perforations of the carving, and farther away 
they are lost in the darkness. Here is a continual chang- 
ing of perspectives, distances, deceptions, mysteries, and 
optical illusions made by the architecture and the sunlight 
and your own over-excited and burning imagination. 

'' What must this patio have been," said Gongora, 
" when the interior walls of the portico were glistening 
with mosaics, the capitals of the columns gleaming with 
gold, the ceilings and vaults painted in a thousand colours, 
the doorways closed by hangings of silk, and the niches 
filled with flowers ; and when beneath the temples and in 
the halls perfumed waters flowed, and when from the nos- 
trils of the lions dashed forth twelve jets of water that fell 
back into the basin, and when the air was impregnated with 
the most delicious perfumes of Arabia! You should come 
here at sunrise ; you should also come here at sunset and 
at moonlight to see the marvels of colour, light and shade ! 
It would turn your head ! " 

We went to see the halls. On the eastern side there is 



86 .THE ALHAMBRA 

one called the Hall of Justice, which you reach by passing 
under three large arches, each one taking the place of a 
door opening into the court. It is a long and narrow hall, 
of rich and bold architecture, the walls of which are 
covered with very intricate arabesques and precious mosaics, 
with points, bunches, and protuberances of stucco hanging 
from the arches, which crowd together, drop, spring from, 
press upon, and are superimposed upon each other, as if 
they disputed the very space, and showing even now traces 
of ancient colours which must have given to this ceiling 
the semblance of suspended fruits and flowers. 

On the northern side of the court there is another hall 
called de las Hermanas (the Two Sisters) from two large slabs 
of marble that are found in the pavement. It is the most 
gracious hall of the Alhambra. It is small, square, and 
domed with one of those vaults in the form of a cupola 
which the Spaniards call half-oranges, sustained by little 
columns and arches arranged in a circle, all cut to resemble 
a grotto of stalactites with an infinity of points and holes, 
coloured and gilded and so light that they seem to the eye 
as if hanging in the air : you would think that they would 
tremble like a curtain, at a touch, or evaporate like a cloud, 
or vanish like a lot of soap-bubbles. The walls of stucco, 
like those of the other halls, and covered with arabesques, 
of an incredible delicacy, are among the most astonishing 
productions of human fancy and patience. 

We returned to the Court of the Myrtles, and visited the 
halls on the other side of the Tower of Comares, most of 
them half ruined, others transformed, some of them half 



THE ALHAMBRA 



87 



bare, without either pavement or roof, but all worthy of 
being seen because of the memories they av/aken, and also 
in order to understand the construction of the building. The 
old mosque was converted into a chapel by Charles V. and 
a large Arabian hall into an oratory ; here and there you 
noticed the debris of arabesques and ceilings of carved 
cedar; the galleries, the courts, and the vestibules seemed 
the remains of a palace devoured by fire. 

At this point I truly thought that there was nothing more 
to be seen, and I committed the fresh imprudence of saying 
so to Gongora. At this blow he could no longer contain 
himself, and, leading me into the vestibule of the Court of 
Myrtles, before a plan of the building that hung upon the 
wall, he said : 

" Look around you, and you will see that all the halls, 
all the courts, and all the towers that we have visited up to 
now, only occupy the twentieth part of the space enclosed 
by the walls of the Alhambra; you see that we have not 
yet visited the remains of three other mosques, the ruins 
of the Hall of the Cadi, the Water-Tower, the Tower of 
the Infantas, the Tower of the Prisoner, the Tower of 
Candil, the Tower of the Pico, the Tower of the Poign- 
ards, the Tower of the Siete Melos^ the Tower of the 
Captain, the Tower of the Sorcerer, the Tower of 
the Heads, the Tower of the Weapons, the Tower 
of the Hidalgos, the Tower of the Chickens, the 
Tower of the Dice, the Tower of Homage, the Tower of 
the Vela, the Tower of the Powder, the ruins of the house 
of Mondejar, the military quarters, the Iron Gate, the in- 



88 THE ALHAMBRA 

terior walls, the cisterns, and the promenades ; for you must 
know that the Alhambra is not solely a palace, but a town, 
and that it would take a lifetime to search for arabesques, 
to read inscriptions and to discover each day some new 
view of the hills and mountains, falling into an ecstasy 
once at least during the twenty-four hours ! " 
And I thought I had seen the Alhambra. 



'% 



LAMBETH PALACE 
JOHN RICHARD GREEN 

A LITTLE higher up the river, but almost opposite 
to the huge mass of the Houses of Parliament, lies 
a broken, irregular pile of buildings, at whose angle, look- 
ing out over the Thames, is one grey weather-beaten tower. 
The broken pile is the archiepiscopal Palace of Lambeth ; 
the grey, weather-beaten building is its Lollards' Tower. 
From this tower the mansion itself stretches in a varied 
line ; chapel and guard-room, and gallery, and the stately 
buildings of the new house looking out on the terrace and 
garden ; while the Great Hall, in which the library has 
now found a home, is the low picturesque building which 
reaches southward along the river to the gate. 

The story of each of these spots will interweave itself 
with the thread of our narrative as we proceed ; but I would 
warn my readers at the outset that I do not propose to 
trace the history of Lambeth in itself, or to attempt any 
architectural or picturesque description of the place. What 
I attempt is simply to mark, in incident after incident 
which has occurred within its walls, the relation of the 
house to the primates whom it has sheltered for seven hun- 
dred years, and through them to the literary, ecclesiastical, 
the political history of the realm. 

Nothing illustrates the last of these relations better than 



90 



LAMBETH PALACE 



the site of the house itself. It is doubtful whether we 
can date the residence of the archbishops of Canterbury at 
Lambeth, which was then a manor-house of the see of 
Rochester, earlier than the reign of Eadward the Confessor. 
But there was a significance in the choice of the spot, as 
there was a significance in the date at which the choice 
was made. So long as the political head of the English 
people ruled, like JElfved, or iEthelstan, or Eadgar, from 
Winchester, the spiritual head of the English people was 
content to rule from Canterbury. It was when the piety 
of the Confessor and the political prescience of his suc- 
cessors brought the kings finally to Westminster that the 
archbishops were permanently drawn to their suffragan's 
manor-house at Lambeth. The Norman rule gave a fresh 
meaning to their position. In the new course of national 
history which opened with the Conquest, the Church was 
called to play a part greater than she had ever known 
before. Hitherto the archbishop had been simply the head 
of the ecclesiastical order — a representative of the moral 
and spiritual forces on which the government was based. 
The Conquest, the cessation of the great Witenagemotes 
in which the nation, however imperfectly, had till then 
found a voice, turned him into a tribune of the people. 

Foreigner though he might be, it was the primate's part 
to speak for the conquered race the words it could no 
longer utter. He was, in fact, the permanent leader (to 
borrow a modern phrase) of a constitutional opposition ; 
and, in addition to the older religious forces which he 
wielded, he wielded a popular and democratic force which 



LAMBETH PALACE 



91 



held the new king and the new baronage in check. It 
was he who received from the sovereign whom he crowned 
the solemn oath that he would rule not by his own will, 
but according to the customs, or, as we should say now, 
the traditional constitution, of the realm,. It was his to 
call on the people to declare whether they chose him for 
their king ; to receive the thundered " Ay, ay, " of the 
crowd ; to place the priestly unction on shoulder and 
breast, the royal crown on brow. To watch over the 
observance and order into religious duties ; to uphold the 
custom and law of the realm against personal tyranny ; to 
guard, amidst the darkness and brutality of the age, those 
interests of religion, of morality, of intellectual life, which 
as yet lay peacefully together beneath the wing of the 
Church — this was the political office of the primate in the 
new order which the Conquest created ; and it was this 
office which expressed itself in the site of the house that 
fronted the king's house over Thames. 

From the days of Archbishop Anselm, therefore, to the 
days of Stephen Langton, Lambeth only fronted West- 
minster as the archbishop fronted the king. Synod met 
over against council ; the clerical court of the one ruler 
rivaled in splendour, in actual influence, the baronial 
court of the other. For more than a century of our 
history the great powers which together were to make up 
the England of the future lay marshalled over against each 
other on either side the water. 

With the union of the English people, and the sudden 
arising of English freedom, which followed the Great 



g2 LAMBETH PALACE 

Charter, this peculiar attitude of the archbishops passed 
necessarily away. When the people itself spoke again, its 
voice was heard, not in the hall of Lambeth, but in the 
Chapter-house which gave a home to the House of 
Commons in its earlier sessions at Westminster. From 
the day of Stephen Langton the nation has towered higher 
and higher above its mere ecclesiastical organization, till 
the one stands dwarfed beside the other as Lambeth now 
stands dwarfed before the mass of the Houses of Parlia- 
ment. Nor was the religious change less than the 
political. Li the Church as in the State, the archbishops 
suddenly fell into the rear. From the days of the first 
English Parliament to the days of the Reformation, they 
not only ceased to be representatives of the moral and 
religious forces of the nation, but stand actually opposed 
to them. Nowhere is this better brought out than in 
their house beside the Thames. The political history of 
Lambeth lies spread over the whole of its site, from the 
gate-way of Adorton to the garden where we shall see 
Cranmer musing on the fate of Anne Boleyn. Its ecclesi- 
astical interest, on the other hand, is concentrated in a 
single spot. We must ask our readers, therefore, to 
follow us beneath the groining of the Gate-house into the 
quiet little court that lies on the river-side of the hall. 
Passing over its trim grass-plot to a doorway at the angle 
of Lollards' Tower, and mounting a few steps, they will 
find themselves in a square antechamber, paved roughly 
with tiles, and with a single small window looking out 
towards the Thames. The chamber is at the base of 



LAMBETH PALACE 



93 



Lollards' Tower; in the centre stands a huge oaken 
pillar, to which the room owes its name of the " Post- 
room, " and to which somewhat mythical tradition asserts 
Lollards to have been tied when they were " examined " 
by the whip. On its western side a doorway of the 
purest early English work leads us directly into the 
palace chapel. 

It is strange to stand at a single step in the very heart 
of the ecclesiastical life of so many ages, within walls be- 
neath which the men in whose hands the fortunes of 
English religion have been placed from the age of the 
Great Charter till to-day have come and gone ; to see the 
light falling through the tall windows with their marble 
shafts on the spot where Wyclif fronted Sudbury, on the 
lowly tomb of Parker, on the stately screen-work of Laud, 
on the altar where the last sad communion of Bancroft 
originated the Non-jurors. It is strange to note the very 
characteristics of the building itself, marred as it is by mod- 
ern restoration, and to feel how simply its stern, unadorned 
beauty, the beauty of Salisbury and of Lincoln, expressed 
the very tone of the Church that finds its centre there. 

And hardly less strange it is to recall the odd, roistering 
figure of the primate, to whom, if tradition be true, it owes 
this beauty. Boniface of Savoy was the youngest of three 
brothers out of whom their niece, Eleanor, the queen of 
Henry the Third, was striving to build up a foreign party 
in the realm. Her uncle Amadeus was richly enfeoffed 
with English lands ; the Savoy Palace in the Strand still 
recalls the sentiment and the magnificence of her uncle 



94 



LAMBETH PALACE 



Peter. For this third and younger uncle she grasped at 
the highest post in the state save the crown itself. "The 
handsome archbishop," as his knights loved to call him, 
was not merely a foreigner as Lanfranc and Anselm had 
been foreigners — strange in manner or in speech to the 
flock whom they ruled — he was foreign in the worst sense : 
strange to their freedom, their sense of law, their reverence 
for piety. His first visit set everything on fire. He re- 
treated to Lyons to hold a commission in the Pope's body- 
guard, but even Innocent was soon weary of his tyranny. 
When the threat of sequestration recalled him after four 
years of absence to his see, his hatred of England, his 
purpose soon to withdraw again to his own sunny South, 
were seen in his refusal to furnish Lambeth. Certainly he 
went the wrong way to stay here. The young primate 
brought with him Savoyard fashions, strange enough to 
English folk. His armed retainers, foreigners to a man, 
plundered the City markets. His own archiepiscopal fist 
felled to the ground a prior who opposed his visitation. It 
was the prior of St. Bartholomew's by Smithfield ; and 
London, on the king's refusal to grant redress, took the 
matter into her own hands. The City bells swung out, 
and a noisy crowd of citizens were soon swarming beneath 
the walls of the palace, shouting threats of vengeance. 

For shouts Boniface cared little. In the midst of the 
tumult he caused the sentences of excommunication which 
he had fulminated to be legally executed in the chapel of 
his house. But, bravado-like, this soon died before the 
universal resentment, and " the handsome archbishop " fled 



LAMBETH PALACE 



95 



again to Lyons. How helpless the successor of Augustine 
really was, was shown by a daring outrage perpetrated in 
his absence. Master Eustace, his official, had thrown into 
prison the prior of St. Thomas's Hospital for some con- 
tempt of court; and the prior's diocesan, the Bishop of 
Winchester, a prelate as foreign and lawless as Boniface 
himself, took up the injury as his own. A party of his 
knights appeared before the house at Lambeth, tore the 
gates from their hinges, set Master Eustace on horseback, 
and carried him off to the episcopal prison at Farnham. 
At last Boniface bowed to submission, surrendered the 
points at issue, recalled his excommunication, and was suf- 
fered to return. He had learned his lesson well enough to 
remain from that time a quiet, inactive man, with a dash 
of Continental frugality and wit about him. Whether he 
built the chapel or not, he would probably have said of it 
as he said of the Great Hall at Canterbury, " My prede- 
cessors built, and I discharge the debt for their building. 
It seems to me that the true builder is the man that pays 
the bill." 

From the moment when Wyclif stood in Lambeth 
Chapel the Church sunk, ecclesiastically as well as politic- 
ally, into non-existence. It survived merely as a vast land- 
owner; while its primates, after a short effort to resume 
their older position as real heads of their order, dwindled 
into ministers and tools of the crown. The gate-tower 
of the house, the grand mass of brick-work, whose dark- 
red tones are (or, alas ! were, till a year or two since) so 
exquisitely brought out by the grey stone of its angles and 



96 



LAMBETH PALACE 



the mullions of its broad arch-window, recalls an age — 
that of its builder, Archbishop Morton — when Lambeth, 
though the residence of the first minister of the crown, 
had really lost all hold on the nobler elements of political 
life. It was raised from this degradation by the efl-"orts of 
a primate to whose merits justice has hardly as yet been 
done. First in date among the genuine portraits of the 
Archbishops of Canterbury which hang round the walls of 
the Guard-room at Lambeth is the portrait of Archbishop 
Warham. The plain, homely old man's face still looks 
down on us, line for line, as the "seeing eye" of Holbein 
gazed on it three centuries ago. " I instance this picture," 
says Mr. Wornum, in his life of the painter, " as an illus- 
tration that Holbein had the power of seeing what he 
looked on, and of perfectly transferring to his picture 
what he saw." Memorable in the annals of art as the first 
of that historic series which brings home to us, as no age 
has ever been brought home to eyes of after-time, the age 
of the English Reformation, it is even more memorable as 
marking the close of the great intellectual movement which 
the Reformation swept away. 

With the Reformation, in its nobler and purer aspects, 
Lambeth, as we have said, had little to do. Bucer, 
Peter Martyr, and Alasco gathered there for a moment 
round Cranmer; but it was simply as a resting-place, on 
their way to Cambridge, to Oxford, and to Austin Friars. 
Only one of the symbols of the new Protestantism has 
any connection with it ; the Prayer-book was drawn up in 
the peaceful seclusion of Oxford. The party conferences, 



LAMBETH PALACE 



97 



the rival martyrdoms of the jarring creeds, took place else- 
where. The memories of Cranmer which linger round 
Lambeth are simply memories of degradation ; and that the 
deepest degradation of all, the degradation of those solemn 
influences which the primacy embodies to the sanction of 
political infamy. It is fair, indeed, to remember the bitter- 
ness of Cranmer's suffering. Impassive as he seemed, with 
a face that never changed, and sleep seldom known to be 
broken, men saw little of the inner anguish with which 
the tool of Henry's injustice bent before that overmastering 
will. 

None of the great theological impulses of this age or 
the last, it is sometimes urged, came out of Lambeth. 
Little of the theological bitterness, of the controversial 
narrowness of this age or the last, it may fairly be an- 
swered, has ever entered its gates. Of Lambeth we may 
say what Matthew Arnold says of Oxford, that many as 
are its faults, it has never surrendered itself to ecclesiastical 
Philistines. In the calm, genial silence of its courts, its 
library, its galleries, in the presence of its venerable past, 
the virulence, the petty strife, the tumult of religious fanat- 
icism finds itself hushed. Among the storms of the Wes- 
leyan revival, of the Evangelical revival, of the Puseyite 
revival, the voice of Lambeth has ever pleaded for a truth, 
simpler, larger, more human- than theirs. Amidst the deaf- 
ening clamour of Tractarian and Anti-Tractarian dispu- 
tants, both sides united in condemning the silence of Lam- 
beth. Yet the one word that came from Lambeth will still 
speak to men's hearts when all their noisy disputations are 



98 



LAMBETH PALACE 



forgotten. '•'■ How," a prelate, whose nearest relative had 
joined the Church of Rome, asked Archbishop Howley, 
" how shall I treat my brother ? " " As a brother," was 
the archbishop's reply. 



CHATEAU DE BLOIS 

JULES LOISELEUR 

THE castle of Blois would be without a rival in 
France if Fontainebleau did not exist. The first 
time we enter that interior court, the four sides of which 
each tell the history of a great period of architecture, we 
are dazzled by the throng of memories and ideas that start 
from these four great pages. The obedient stone, in ac- 
cordance with the epoch, has recorded the suspicious pre- 
cautions, the paternal confidence, the chivalric enthusiasm 
and the majestic isolation of the masters of this royal dwell- 
ing. Pure feudalism is written in the mighty walls of the 
fortress of the Counts of Blois. The transitional style, 
one of the most important examples of which is offered by 
this castle of Louis XII. , marks the change from the feudal 
system to the unitary monarchy prepared by Louis XL 
This youthful monarchy, already absolute though tempered 
by the great aristocratic individualities, already glitters and 
triumphs in this brilliant facade built by the young victor of 
Marignan. By the side of this splendid facade, like a 
severe master beside a turbulent pupil, the severe profile of 
the castle, built by Mansart, suggests the absolute and un- 
counterpoised monarchy of Louis XVL ; — unity without di- 
versity, force without grace. 

Thus the unknown architect who cut the walls of the 



100 CHATEAU DE BLOIS 

mighty fortress out of the rock for Thibault le Tricheur ; 
and the artists, native in all probability and therefore un- 
known, who drew the arabesques of Francis the First's 
stairway ; and Joconde, the architect of Louis XII. ; and 
Mansart, the architect of Gaston of Orleans; and all 
those bold stone-workers, unknown to themselves, doubt- 
less, in those four facades have shown the four chief phases 
of royal authority. " Monuments are the true writings of 
the nations." 

Above the city of Blois, upon a triangular plateau, 
whence the view embraces the vast panorama of the left 
bank of the Loire, formerly stood a fortress, the origin of 
which is lost in the obscurity of ages. It was one of those 
redoubtable holds in which the great feudal barons watched 
for their prey and kept what they captured. It was one of 
the most formidable of all, and it is stated that it was never 
reduced, nor even besieged. Three narrow ascents, shad- 
owed on either side by high walls, gave access to it. A 
double ring of fortifications was in front of the donjon, 
which, in case of siege, was the last resort of the master of 
this formidable abode. The first enclosure, called the 
lower court, or fore-court, to-day forms a courtyard of con- 
siderable size, at the end of which rises the front built by 
Louis XII. Ruined towers with thick walls still testify of 
the precautions taken to defend this first circuit. 

Immense offices, a church the foundation of which dates 
back from the Eleventh Century, and which must not be" 
confounded with the chapel that is to be seen in the present 
castle-yard, and lodgings for the canons and servants of 



CHATEAU DE BLOIS lOl 

this church formed a vast circle of buildings around this first 
courtyard where also were to be seen the habitations of 
the count's principal officers. There, in succession, after- 
wards arose the house from the window of which Georges 
d'Amboise, counsellor to Louis XII., conversed with his 
master; the house of the Due d'Epernon, who favoured 
the flight of Marie de'Medicis; and that other mansion 
where, on June 13th, 1626, Louis XIII. caused the arrest of 
the Prince de Vendome, accused of being concerned in the 
Chalais conspiracy. 

The castle built by Louis XII. now stands on the spot 
where the second enclosure began. Access to the latter 
was gained by a drawbridge thrown across a moat between 
two strong towers. Close to this bridge was a narrow pas- 
sage communicating with the covered way called the Vault 
of the Castle, which has lately disappeared and which led 
to the Place des Jesuites. It would be rash to pretend ex- 
actly to reconstruct the physiognomy which this second 
enclosure presented in the Twelfth or Thirteenth Cen- 
tury. The buildings of the background, vast edifices 
raised by the Counts of Blois, of the house of Chatillon, 
have completely disappeared and are only visible to-day in 
the drawings of de Cerceau. It is on the site of these 
buildings that Gaston d' Orleans raised, about 1635, the 
cold and regular building that bears his name. 

It was between the thick walls of this hall and the no 
less thick walls of the Tour des Moulins that Francis the 
First wedged his chateau in. If we leave the Hall of the 
Estates, deferring till a little later a visit to the elegant edi- 



102 CHATEAU DE BLOIS 

fice of that prince, and go immediately to the tower that 
terminates it and connects the chateau of Francis the First 
with that of Gaston of Orleans, we shall have traversed all 
that now remains standing of the ancient strong castle of 
the Counts of Blois. 

The chateau built by Francis the First, by the abundance 
and variety of its ornamentation, crushes the simple abode 
of Louis XII. Beside this strong and severe building it 
produces the effect of a young bride covered with laces be- 
side the rich but serious and durable robe of her grand- 
mother. 

It was Louis XII., however, who laid the foundations of 
Francis the First's wing. But these foundations had 
scarcely risen above the ground when he died. The plan 
adopted at that time only required one facade, — that of the 
courtyard. Francis the First had another building joined 
to the original one. When the addition was made, the 
strong partition-wall that terminated the first building and 
to-day separates the two sides of the edifice was already far 
advanced, so that it was necessary to pierce it with door- 
ways that now allow us to appreciate its thickness. We 
are told that three years sufficed for the young victor of 
Marignan to carry this enterprise to the point at which we 
see it to-day. The king's plan was to add two other wings 
to the castle that would thus have formed a perfect square. 
But Francis the First lacked the money necessary for the 
execution of this colossal plan, as Louis XIV. did after- 
wards for Versailles. The Field of the Cloth of Gold and 
the Italian war had exhausted his resources. During the 



CHATEAU DE BLOIS 



103 



years that followed, the many catastrophes that over- 
whelmed France — the loss of Milan, the death of Bayard, 
the battle of Pavia, and finally the captivity in Madrid, — de- 
stroyed Francis's passion for building, — that love of the 
square and trowel that was common to him and all the 
great sovereigns of our country. When he returned from 
captivity, in 1526, with his head full of fairy-like Arab and 
Moorish constructions, he was already dreaming of Cham- 
bord, and neglected Blois, in which, however, had been 
gathered the money for his ransom. The grand project, 
conceived in 15 16, was therefore abandoned, and the un- 
finished castle of Blois remained as we see it to-day, — a 
curious and incoherent assemblage of monuments of divers 
styles and periods. 

We have heard nothing about the chateau built by Gas- 
ton of Orleans, not that that edifice is without merit, but 
its cold regularity disagreeably contrasts with the Renais- 
sance architecture, so sparkling and prodigal of caprice. It 
was for the purpose of completing that correct and weari- 
some monument that Gaston wanted to destroy what re- 
mains of Francis the First's wing. He would gladly have 
said, like Louis XIV. : " Remove those grotesque piles." 
For it is a singular fact that at that time good taste 
joined in the same condemnation the Middle Ages, 
whose wonders were considered barbarous, and the Ren- 
aissance which had led the arts back to the purer forms 
of antiquity. With bare stones and straight lines 
throughout, yet there was something of the majestic 
gravity of Louis XIV. in the work of his uncle Gaston. 



104 



CHATEAU DE BLOIS 



In order that the straight line may produce great effects it 
must be developed over the immense surface of a Louvre or 
a Versailles. At Blois it is only insignificant. This chateau 
would serve for anything, — a museum, a library, or a tri- 
bunal, just as well as the abode of a prince. In 1823, it 
had a narrow escape of becoming a prefecture. They were 
going to pull down what they called the shanties of Louis 
XII. and substitute a fine iron grille for them. Francis the 
First's wing found grace in the eyes of the destroyers on 
condition of sheltering the household : the kitchens had to 
be placed somewhere ! It is true that this happened in 
1823, only a few years after the Empire. 

The work of a period of transition, when tranquillity was 
succeeding agitation, this palace of the chief of the Fronde 
does not possess the serene power and self-confidence that 
came afterwards, but we already feel something in it of the 
imposing unity and the majestic ennui of the great reign. 



FUTTEHPORE-SIKRI 

LOUIS ROUSSELET 

THE ruins of Futtehpore, the Versailles of the great 
Akbar, cover the summit of a hill twelve miles 
from Bhurtpore. On leaving that town, we travelled 
across a succession of monotonous plains alternately com- 
posed of marshes and rocky deserts. The horizon was 
unbounded, except on the east, where lay the hill of 
Futtehpore, the fantastic outline of which caught the rays 
of the rising sun. Even from afar, the eye is struck by the 
number and size of the buildings, which a royal caprice has 
erected in the midst of this desert : one would take it for a 
large and populous city. Those long lines of palaces with 
their gilded domes and pinnacles could never have been 
built to be so soon abandoned to solitude. The scene be- 
comes grander the nearer you approach. On arriving at 
the foot of the hill, the road passes under a majestic gate- 
way, beyond which are the long, silent streets ; the palaces 
still standing perfect and entire amidst the ruined dwellings 
of the people ; with the fountains and the magnificent 
gardens, wherein the pomegranates and the jessamine have 
grown for centuries. The whole scene is of imposing 
grandeur; and the hand of time has fallen so lightly upon 
it that one might take it for a town very recently deserted 
by its inhabitants, or one of the enchanted cities of Sinbad 
the Sailor. 



I06 FUTTEHPORE-SIKRI 

The bigarri^ ' whom we had taken with us from the 
village of Sikri, conducted us to a bungalow which is main- 
tained by the English Government for the accommodation of 
travellers. This bungalow, which was once the ancient 
kutchery'^ of Akbar, is built of red sandstone, and sur- 
rounded by a beautiful verandah supported by columns. It 
is situated on the northern extremity of the plateau, and 
overlooks the town on one side and the front of the 
zenanah on the other. An old Sepoy is placed in charge 
of the edifice, which contains two comfortably furnished 
apartments. 

The foundations of Futtehpore, " the Town of Victory," 
were laid by Akbar in 157 1, and the ramparts, city, and 
palace were all completed with extraordinary rapidity. 
Akbar was attracted to this desert by the sanctity of a 
Mussulman Anchorite, Selim Shisti, who inhabited one of 
the caverns on the hill. Attracted by the situation, he 
built himself a palace, and finally, being unwilling to give 
up the society of the holy man, he resolved to establish 
there the capital of his empire. In a hw years this desert 
spot was transformed into a large and populous city ; but 
the death of Selim soon put an end to this prosperity. 
Akbar then saw the folly of trying to place his capital in 
the midst of these sterile plains, unapproached by any of 
the great rivers, more especially as he possessed the unusually 
favourable situation of Agra. His resolution was promptly 
taken. In 1584, he abandoned Futtehpore with all its 

^ A guide for travellers, furnished by the villages. 
^ Court of the magistrate attached to the palace. 



FUTTEHPORE-SIKRI 



107 



grandeur, and carried off the whole population to people his 
new capital of Agra. The evacuation was complete; none 
of the successors of Akbar cared to carry out his foolish 
project, and very soon the only inhabitants of Futtehpore 
were wild animals and a few anchorites. One is almost 
tempted to think that Akbar built Futtehpore for the sole 
purpose of giving posterity some idea of his greatness in 
leaving this monument of his capricious fancy. 

The fame of Selim still attracts thousands of pilgrims to 
his tomb, where they assemble at certain seasons of the 
year ; and, to supply the wants of these devotees, two vil- 
lages have sprung up on the site of the deserted town, one 
called Futtehpore, and the other Sikri; and it is by this 
double appellation of Futtehpore-Sikri that the ruins are 
generally known. Apart from their beauty, which all must 
admire, they are of special interest to the archaeologist as 
being the work of a single individual, and therefore a per- 
fect specimen of the style of architecture of his epoch. 
From their marvellous state of preservation, you can trace, 
step by step, the mode of life of the great Akbar, and can 
form a just idea of Indian manners and customs in the 
Sixteenth Century. Everything still breathes of the mag- 
nificence of that Eastern Court the fame of which was 
carried to Europe by contemporary travellers, whose tales 
were looked upon as fables, and the wealth and splendour 
of which excited later the avarice and cupidity of the 
Western nations. 

The tomb of Selim, the imperial palace, and some of 
the dwellings of the Mogul grandees are almost entire. 



I08 FUTTEHPORE-SIKRI 

They form a compact group, one mile in length, which oc- 
cupies the summit of a hill i8o feet high. This hill fur- 
nished the whole of the material of which they are built, 
which is a fine sandstone, varying from purple to rose 
colour. The stone has been left unornamented through- 
out; but the architects have avoided the monotony of the 
colour by artistically arranging its various tints. The mass 
is now softened by timej and one of its chief beauties is 
this mellow colouring, which blends ground and building in 
one, making the latter appear as though carved out of the 
peaks of the mountain. 

The imperial palace lies to the east of the tomb. It is a 
vast collection of separate buildings connected by galleries 
and courtyards, and covering an area at least equal to that 
occupied by the Louve and the Tuileries. 

The first building you come to on leaving the tomb used 
to contain the private apartments of the emperor. It now 
goes by the name of tapili^ or guard-house, from the fact of 
its being inhabited by the handful of soldiers who are em- 
ployed to keep off marauders from the ruins. The palace 
is built with great simplicity, its exterior being nothing but 
a blank wall, with a small court in its centre, into which 
the galleries on the different stories open. On one side is 
a colonnade, profusely ornamented in the Hindoo style ; 
this was the verandah of the apartment of Akbar's favourite 
wife, and the mother of Jehanghir : and at the end of an 
open space which extends in front of the palace is the 
kutchery^ now converted into a bungalow for travellers. 

A ruined gallery leads from the tapili to the Imperial 



FUTTEHPORE-SIKRI 



109 



zenanah, which is surrounded by a high wall. Each 
princess was allotted a separate palace in this enclosure, 
with its own gardens, etc., constructed according to her 
own taste and wishes. The first of these was the palace 
of the Queen Mary, a Portuguese lady whom Akbar had 
espoused ; in the apartments of which are numerous fres- 
coes, amongst others one representing the Annunciation of 
the Virgin Mary. It is a matter of surprise to find a 
Mussulman prince, in the Sixteenth Century, with such 
tolerant views as to allow in his palace a thing so opposed 
to the principles of his religion; but it does not astonish 
one in such an enlightened man as the great Akbar. 
Wishing to put an end forever to the subjects of discord 
which divided the nations of his empire, he devised the 
plan of creating a new religion which should unite the 
sympathies of all. For this purpose he assembled a gen- 
eral council which was attended by the priests of all the 
religious denominations of India, and even by some of 
the Christian missionaries from Goa ; and to them he sub- 
mitted his project : but nothing resulted from the discus- 
sion. In spite of this the emperor compiled a voluminous 
work on the different religions of the world, viz., Chris- 
tianity, Judaism, Islamism, and the various Hindoo sects, 
in which he displayed very liberal and enlightened views. 

From the palace of Queen Mary you enter a court, sur- 
rounded by apartments, and almost entirely occupied by a 
basin of vast dimensions, in the centre of which is an 
island built on a terrace, and reached by four stone foot- 
bridges. At the extremity of this court, there is a 



1 10 FUTTEHPORE-SIKRI 

pavilion, the walls and pillars of which are enriched 
with fine sculptures ; its rooms overlooking on one side 
the ornamental tank, and on the other a garden still 
ornamented with shrubberies and fine trees. This was 
the abode of one of Akbar's wives, the Roumi Sultani, 
daughter of one of the Sultans of Constantinople. 

On a high terrace, to the right of this palace, is the em- 
peror's sleeping-apartment ; the ground-floor containing 
a spacious hall with sculptured columns, which is half 
filled up with rubbish. 

On the west of the zenanah, rises a fanciful construction, 
called Panch Mahal — " the Five Palaces," — which consists 
of four terraces, supported by galleries rising one above 
another, and gradually diminishing in size towards the top, 
where they terminate in a dome sustained by four columns. 
It resembles the half of a pyramid, and has a very curious 
effect. The thirty-five pillars which support the second 
terrace are all different, comprising almost every style and 
some very remarkable specimens of original architecture. 
It is a valuable architectural collection. There has been 
much discussion as to the design of the building, since the 
open galleries could not possibly have been intended for 
habitation. Its position against the walls of the zenanah, 
the interior of which it overlooks and communicates with, 
leads to the supposition that it was assigned to the 
eunuchs; but in any case it was a fanciful idea of the 
architect. In the little court which surrounds the Panch 
Mahal are some very curious detached buildings for the 
accommodation of the servants of the harem. The archi- 



FUTTEHPORE-SIKRI 1 1 1 

tect evidently wished to give them an appearance most be- 
fitting their use ; and, as there vv^as no vi^ood at his disposal, 
he minutely copied in stone those light constructions which 
serve in the palaces of India as a shelter for the lower 
servants. The roof, formed of slabs of stone, is carved to 
imitate thatch, and is supported by the same network of 
beams which would be used for a lighter material than sand- 
stone. In a word, they are sheds built of sculptured stone. 

After passing through the galleries of the Pdnch Mahal^ 
you come out upon the principal court of the palace, 
called the Court of the Pucheesee ; on one side of which 
are the walls of the zenanah, and on the other the apart- 
ments of the ministers and the audience-chambers. 

Pucheesee is a game of great antiquity, which the In- 
dians have always been passionately fond of; and it is 
played with pawns on chess-boards greatly resembling those 
used in Europe. There are four players, with four pawns 
apiece; and the moves are regulated by throwing the dice, 
the object being to get your four pawns into the centre of 
the board. The game of pucheesee was played by Akbar 
in a truly regal manner ; the court itself, divided into red 
and white squares, being the board, and an enormous stone, 
raised on four feet, representing the central point. It was 
here that Akbar and his courtiers played this game ; sixteen 
young slaves from the harem, wearing the players' colours, 
themselves represented the pieces, and moved to the squares 
according to the throw of the dice. It is said that the em- 
peror took such a fancy to playing the game on this grand 
scale that he had a court for pucheesee constructed in all 



112 FUTTEHPORE-SIKRI 

his palaces ; and traces of such are still visible at Agra ^ and 
Allahabad. 

To the north of this court and on the same side as the 
Panch Mahal is a palace, built with great simplicity, and in 
such a good state of preservation that you might mistake it 
for a modern building. One wing is a perfect labyrinth of 
corridors and passages, in which the ladies of the Court 
amused themselves with their favourite games of " aukh- 
matchorli," or blind-man's-buff, and hide-and-seek ; and 
before it rises a kiosk of Hindoo architecture, called the 
Gooroo-ka-Mundil^ " Temple of the Mendicant." The 
emperor, in order to show his regard for the religion of the 
majority of his subjects, entertained at his Court a Gooroo, 
or religious mendicant of the Saiva sect, and even had this 
temple built for him and his co-religionists. 

A little farther on and facing the zenanah is one of the 
most beautiful buildings of Futtehpore, consisting of a 

1 " The following account of Akbar's Pachisi-board is from an old Agra 
periodical : — The game is usually played by four persons, each of whom 
is supplied with four wooden or ivory cones, which are called ' gots,' and 
are of different colours for distinction. Victory consists in getting these 
four pieces safely through all the squares of each rectangle into the vacant 
place in the centre, — the difficulty being that the adversaries take up in 
the same way as pieces are taken at backgammon. Moving is regulated 
by throwing ' cowries,' whose apertures falling uppermost or not, affect 
the amount of the throw by certain fixed rules. But on this Titanic 
board of Akbar's, wooden or ivory ' gots ' would be lost altogether. Six- 
teen girls, therefore, dressed distinctively — say four in red, four in blue, four 
in white, four in yellow — were trotted up and down the squares, taken up 
by an adversary, and put back at the beginning again; and at last, after 
many difficulties, four of the same colour would find themselves gliding 
into their dopattas together in the middle space, and the game was won." 
— Bholanaiith Clmnder. 



FUTTEHPORE-SIKRI 1 1 3 

graceful pavilion of one story, surmounted by four light 
cupolas. This is the Dewani-Khas^ or Palace of the 
Council of State. The simplicity of its outline, its square 
windows and handsome balcony, remind one of our modern 
buildings. It is, however, quite in accordance with the 
character of Akbar, who, as well in architecture as in 
religion and government, never copied his predecessors. 
The interior of the Dewani-Khas is a large hall the whole 
height of the edifice, in the centre of which is an enor- 
mous column of red sandstone, which terminates at some 
distance from the ceiling in a large capital magnificently 
sculptured. This capital forms a platform, encircled by a 
light balustrade, from which diverge four stone bridges, 
leading to four niches in the corners of the building ; and a 
staircase hidden in the wall leads to a secret corridor, 
which communicates with the niche. It is one of the 
strangest fancies of the architect of Futtehpore. 

On the occasion of a council being assembled, the 
emperor took his place on the platform, his ministers 
occupying the niches ; while the ambassadors and other 
personages who were called into their presence remained in 
the hall at the foot of the column, and were unable to 
judge of the impression which their communication pro- 
duced on the council. 

A long gallery, partly in ruins, leads from the Dewani- 
Khas to the Dewani-Am^ or Palace of the Public Audi- 
ences. It is a small building, one side of which overlooks 
the Court of the Pucheesee, and the other a large court 
surrounded by colonnades. 



114 



FUTTEHPORE-SIKRI 



The chronicler Aboul Fazel says that at certain hours 
the people were admitted into this court. After the 
council the emperor repaired to the Dewani-Am^ where, 
after having put on his robes of state, he seated himself on 
a tribune overlooking the court. Here he remained for 
some time, inquiring into and redressing the grievances of 
the people, and receiving the strangers who flocked to his 
court. According to tradition, it was here that he received 
the Jesuits of Goa, who brought him the leaves and seeds 
of tobacco ; and it was at Futtehpore that Hakim Aboul 
Futteh Ghilani, one of Akbar's physicians, is supposed to 
have invented the hookah, the pipe of India. 

It would take too long to describe every part of this 
vast palace in detail, for, besides what I have already 
noticed, there are the baths, the mint, the barracks, and 
numerous other buildings, all in ruins. 



CAERNAVON CASTLE 

WILLIAM HOWITT 

THE castles of Caernavon, Beaumaris, and Conway, 
all on this north-west coast of Wales, are monu- 
ments of the subjection of the Principality by Edward I. 
Other castles on this coast he took and strengthened, for 
instance those of Flint and Rhuddlan, as yokes on the 
necks of the North Welsh ; these three he built expressly 
for that purpose, and, though all now more or less in 
ruin, they remain splendid evidences of his power, and of 
the architectural taste of the age. We have no finer 
specimens of castellated buildings than in the fortresses of 
Caernavon and Conway, and what remains of the exten- 
sive castle of Beaumaris shows what it once was. Even 
the Welsh, who do not forget the object of their erection, 
yet regard them with pride. Edward I., a warrior and 
statesman of the first rank, cherished, as the great purpose 
of his life, the reduction of the whole of the magnificent 
island of Great Britain into one compact and noble king- 
dom. This could not be done without invading the 
country and constitutions of Wales and Scotland, which 
had as much right to maintain their own independence, 
their own laws and customs as England had. But warriors 
by nature and possession think little of such rights, and 
readily persuade themselves that the project which aggran- 



Il6 CAERNAVON CASTLE 

dizes their own country sanctifies the most flagrant usur- 
pations, and renders innocent ail the bloodshed and the 
crimes which irresistibly attend such enterprises. At the 
present day, the general sense of both England and Scot- 
land, if not of Wales, would refuse to pronounce on 
Edward I. any other verdict than that of a great benefactor 
to his nation for what he did, and even for what he 
attempted yet failed in, towards the consolidation of Great 
Britain under one crown. 

Whilst, however, he endeavored to mollify the spirit of the 
Welsh by the extension to them of civil, social, and com- 
mercial advantages, he did not trust by any means to these, 
but planned the erection of a chain of strong fortresses 
which should command the north as completely as the 
south was commanded by the same means. And thus 
arose, with others, the three princely strongholds of Con- 
way, Beaumaris, and Caernavon. 

The Castle of Conway seems to have been commenced a 
couple of years later than Caernavon Castle, — Caernavon 
being begun immediately on the defeat and death of 
Llewellyn, that is, in 1282, or in the spring of 1283. 
Conway was not commenced till the following year, 1284, 
when, finding that these two castles were not sufficient to 
keep the Welsh in check, Edward erected the Castle of 
Beaumaris in 1295. There is a great resemblance in the 
style of the two castles of Conway and Beaumaris — they 
have round towers ; whilst Caernavon has octagonal, hex- 
agonal, and pentagonal ones. 

The Castle of Caernavon, which is the one now engag- 



CAERNAVON CASTLE 



117 



ing our attention, differs greatly from these other two ; and 
if not more striking in appearance than that of Conway, — 
than which Pennant says " one more beautiful never 
arose," — it is equal in grandeur, and has, in truth, a royal 
and more stately air. Its situation is very fine ; for, 
though it stands in the not very splendid town of Caerna- 
von, it is placed on the shore of the Menai Straits ; and, 
looked down upon from a rocky eminence called Fort Hill, 
a good view is obtained of it and the town, of Menai 
Straits, the opposite shore of Anglesea, with the distant 
summits of the Holyhead and Parys hills, the blue peaks of 
the Eiflridge, in the promontory of Lleyn, the group of 
mountains surrounding Snowdon, and on a clear day the 
far off heights of Wicklow in Ireland. The architect em- 
ployed by Edward I., in its erection, was Henry Ellerton, 
or de Elreton ; and, according to tradition, many of the 
materials were brought from Segontium, or the old Caer- 
navon, and much of the limestone of which it is built came 
from Twr-Celyn, in Anglesea ; and of the gritstone from 
Vaenol, in the county of Caernavon; the Menai facilita- 
ting the carriage from both places. 

The foundations of this castle are surrounded on three 
sides by water. It is bounded on one side by the Menai 
Straits, on another by the estuary of the Seoint, the river 
which runs hither from the Lake of Llanberis. As you 
approach the castle, its walls and towers have an air of 
lightness, which deceives you completely as to its strength, 
for these walls are immensely thick and strong. The door- 
ways in the gateway towers and the windows are more 



Il8 CAERNAVON CASTLE 

lofty and graceful than the doors and windows generally in 
castles of that age. The walls enclose an area of about 
three acres, and are themselves from seven to nine feet 
thick. They have within them each a gallery, with slips 
for the discharge of arrows, and are flanked by thirteen 
towers, all angular, but differing in the number of their 
angles. The very massive pentagonal tower, called the 
Eagle Tower, guards the south of the Seoint, and is so 
called from a now shapeless figure of that bird, said to have 
been brought from the ruins of the neighbouring Roman 
station of Segontium, but probably placed there simply as 
being one of Edward I.'s crests. This majestic tower has 
three turrets, and its battlements display a mutilated series 
of armour heads of the time of Edward II. This tower is 
the only one of which the stair-case remains perfect, and 
by 158 stone steps you may ascend to the summit, and 
obtain a splendid view thence over the straits, the town, 
and the surrounding country. In the lower part of this 
tower is shown a small, dark room, measuring twelve feet 
by eight feet, in which Edward II. was born. That un- 
fortunate prince was most probably born in the castle ; but 
it has been endeavoured to be shown that it could not pos- 
sibly be in this tower, as it would appear not to have been 
built for some years afterwards, and, indeed, only to have 
been finished by Edward II. after he became king of 
England. The Rev. C. H. Hartshorne, of Cogenhoe, in 
Northamptonshire, asserted at the annual meeting of the 
Cambrian Archaeological Society, held in Caernavon in 
September, 1848, that this castle, instead of being built, as 



CAERNAVON CASTLE 



119 



Pennant and others represent, in about two years, was not~ 
completed in less than thirty-eight years — that it was be- 
gun in 1284, and only completed in 1322. 

As Edward first entered the town of Caernavon on the 
1st of April, 1284, and his son was born on the 25th of the 
same month, twenty-four days only are left for the build- 
ing of the Eagle Tower, which would be work, not for 
English or Welsh builders, but for the Afrits of the Arabian 
Nights^ and would seem to put an end to the whole tradi- 
tion of Edward of Caernavon having been born in the room 
assigned him by popular affection. And yet tradition so 
often maintains itself against statistics, and against theories 
started long afterwards, that we should not be surprised if, 
after all, the first Prince of Wales was actually born in 
that little, dismal room. In the then disturbed condition of 
North Wales ; amid the intense indignation of the Welsh at 
the murder of their beloved prince, and the barbarous exe- 
cution of his brother David ; under the well-known spirit 
of revolt and revenge which was fiercely fermenting in the 
minds of the natives, it is not likely that Edward would 
risk the safety of his wife and his infant in the open town. 
No doubt he had ordered the erection of a stronghold here 
immediately on the fall of Llewellyn. This was in the 
autumn of 1282, and Edward was born, it is said, in the 
Castle of Caernavon, on the 25th of April, 1284. Here 
was a good part of two years in which a strong building 
might have been raised sufficient for a stout defence : and 
this is probably what is meant when it is said by the his- 
torians that Edward commenced this castle in a. d. 1282-3, 



120 CAERNAVON CASTLE 

and completed it in two or three years. It is most probable 
that he did commence and complete such a castle as 
answered his immediate purpose, and that in this Castle his 
son Edward was born ; that Edward I., however, contem- 
plated and erected a much larger and more imposing castle 
on the spot — the present structure ; and that he caused the 
part in which his son's birth took place to be incased in the 
larger building, and that it forms an internal part of the 
present Eagle Tower, just as the poet Thomson's cottage 
at Richmond now forms a portion of the larger villa of the 
Earl of Shaftesbury. It may be remarked that there is no 
appearance of any different masonry on the exterior of this 
part of the Eagle Tower. Of course not. The architect 
would new-front that part in uniformity with the rest; but 
that need not in the least disturb the existence of this room. 
That is our opinion of the real fact ; and it is the one 
which at once reconciles the tradition and the proofs that 
the present splendid fabric was not completed in two years, 
but in two reigns. All Mr. Hartshorne's statistical facts 
may be fully admitted, and the tradition of the place remain 
untouched. We ourselves have just as much, or rather 
more, faith in tradition, than in statistics; for, in scores of 
cases, tradition has asserted itself successfully against ap- 
parent facts, and, in scores of cases, statistics have proved 
very delusive. That Edward I. would be very sure to pre- 
serve the locale of his son's birth, and that the Welsh would 
vividly retain a knowledge of it, may be inferred from the 
part which Edward meant to play with his son, and the de- 
lusive hope which his plan excited in the minds of the 



CAERNAVON CASTLE I2i 

Welsh. He presented this infant son to them, and told 
them that they should have a native Welshman for their 
prince. As Alphonso, Edward's eldest son, was still living, 
the Welsh, in their ardent patriotism, fondly jumped to 
the idea that they would have their own principality 
under a prince of their own. Alphonso died, Edward of 
Caernavon became King of England, and that hope was 
at once sternly quenched. Under such circumstances, the 
Welsh were not likely to forget the spot where the prince 
on whom such hopes were hinged first saw the light. We 
may, therefore, without much chance of mistake, accept at 
once the facts that Edward II. was born in this very tower, 
and yet that the Eagle Tower was not completed till the 
tenth year of the second Edward's reign. 

The main gateway of the Castle is flanked by lofty 
towers of vast strength. Over the grand entrance arch 
stands, in a niche, a mutilated statue of Edward I., with his 
hand upon a half-drawn sword, as if to intimate that he was 
equally prepared to pluck it forth on any menace of resist- 
ance, or to sheathe it at the desire for peace. In the arch- 
way beneath are grooves for four portcullises. The en- 
trance on the east side is called the Queen's Gate, because 
Eleanor is said by tradition to have entered the Castle by it. 
On passing into the interior you observe the traces, o'n the 
two opposite buildings, of a partition wall having formerly 
divided it into two courts. Much of the interior is cleared 
away, leaving exposed one of the fine corridors, which led 
from one part of the castle to another. On the south-east 
side is some modern building, which has been raised within 



122 CAERNAVON CASTLE 

the old walls. Several of the dungeons are yet visible ; and 
in one of these was confined, in the reign of Charles I., the 
celebrated William Prynne. 

No more zealous, fiery, and yet honest spirit, certainly 
was ever confined here than Prynne. He was at once a 
lawyer of Lincoln's Inn, and a determined Puritan. His 
famous Histriomastix^ or a Scourge for Stage Players^ being 
supposed to reflect on Henrietta, the Oueen of Charles I., 
who had herself acted in a pastoral at Somerset House, 
Prynne was prosecuted in the Star Chamber; and his sen- 
tence and its rigid execution are a striking proof of the 
savage spirit of the age, though it was already in the mid- 
dle of the Seventeenth Century, namely, in 1634. He was 
fined ;^3,000, expelled from the University of Oxford, and 
the Society of Lincoln's Inn, degraded from the bar, set in 
the pillory, both his ears cut off^, his book burnt publicly by 
the hangman, and himself condemned to perpetual impris- 
onment. But no amount of cruelty could tame that daring 
soul. Whilst still imprisoned in the Tower, and after three 
years' durance, he launched forth another book, reflecting 
severely on the hierarchy generally, and particularly on the 
popish follies and political despotism of Archbishop Laud. 
For this he was further sentenced by the infamous Star 
Chamber to be fined ^5,000, to be again set in the pillory, 
to be branded on both cheeks with the letters S and L, for 
Seditious Libeller, to have the very roots of his ears dug 
out by the hangman, and to be imprisoned in this Castle of 
Caernavon. 

But the event showed that there was a spirit afloat which 



CAERNAVON CASTLE 



123 



these fierce barbarities of regal tyranny were only rousing into 
a degree of fury which would sweep both church and throne 
from the land. The Puritan friends of Prynne flocked to 
Caernavon Castle in such numbers, that the poor mutilated 
prisoner sate more like a monarch holding a perpetual levee 
than a convict who had endured the vilest insults and the 
savagest brutalities of the law. Only ten weeks had elapsed 
since Prynne was brought to this royal stronghold when he 
was illegally removed by a warrant from the Lords of the 
Council, and removed to the Castle of Mount Orgueil, in 
the island of Jersey. 

There is no reminiscence more lively than that of the 
short incarceration of Prynne in this castle. One of its 
earliest historical events was the surprise of it by Madoc, a 
natural son of Llewellyn, in 1295, and his retention of it 
till Edward L expelled him from it. In 1402, Owen Glen- 
dower made a successful attempt to seize several of the 
Welsh castles, but was repulsed from the gates of this 
stronghold. In the Wars of the Roses it repeatedly changed 
masters, and, in 1644, Cromwell's forces obtained possession 
of it, made 400 of the garrison prisoners, and enriched 
themselves with much spoil. Lord Byron soon after re- 
took it for the king; but in 1646 the Parliament regained 
it. In 1660, the first year of Charles II., an order was 
issued for the demolition of the Castle ; but, fortunately, it 
was not completely carried out. The property still con- 
tinues in the possession of the Crown ; and the Marquis of 
Anglesea holds the office of constable of it, as well as that 
of Mayor of the town and ranger of Snowdon Forest. 



A BALL AT THE WINTER PALACE 
THEOPHILE GAUTIER 

I AM going to tell you about a fete at which I was 
present without being there, from which my body 
was absent but to which my eye was invited — a court ball ! 
Invisible, I saw everything, and, moreover, I did not have 
upon my finger the Ring of Gyges, nor upon my head the 
green felt cap of a Kobold, nor any other talisman. 

Upon the Alexander Square, covered with its carpet of 
snow, numerous carriages were stationed although the cold 
would freeze Parisian coachmen and horses, but which did 
not seem sufficiently rigorous for the Russians to have the 
braziers lighted under the iron kiosks with Chinese roofs 
in the vicinity of the Winter Palace. The trees of the 
Admiralty, diamonded with hoar-frost, looked like great 
white plumes planted in the earth, and the Triumphal Col- 
umn had candied its rose granite with a layer of ice re- 
sembling sugar; the moon, that rose pure and bright, 
poured its dead light upon all this nocturnal whiteness, 
turned the shadows to blue, and gave a fantastic appearance 
to the motionless silhouettes of the equipages whose 
frosted lanterns punctuated the immense expanse with yel- 
lowish points like polar stars. In the background, the 
colossal Winter Palace flamed at all its windows, like a 
mountain pierced with holes and lighted by an internal fire. 



A BALL AT THE WINTER PALACE 



125 



Absolute silence reigned over the square ; the rigour of 
the temperature kept away the curious, who in Paris would 
not have neglected flocking together for the spectacle of 
such a fete^ although watched from a distance and from the 
outside ; and if there had been a crowd, the approaches to 
the palace are so vast that it would have been scattered and 
lost in that enormous space which only an army could fill. 

A sleigh crossed diagonally the great white cloth upon 
which was extended the shadow of the Alexandrine Column 
and lost itself in the dark street that separates the Winter 
Palace from the Hermitage, and that gains from its aerial 
bridge some resemblance to the Canal della Paglia at Venice. 

A few minutes later, an eye, which you may consider as 
separated from the body, sped along a cornice supported by 
the portico of a gallery of the palace ; rows of wax-candles 
planted in the mouldings of the entablature hid it behind a 
hedge of fire and allowed no one from below to perceive its 
feeble gleam. The light hid it better than shadow could 
have done ; it was lost in the dazzling brilliancy. 

The gallery seen from there extended long and deep with 
its polished columns, its mirror-like inlaid floor full of 
gliding reflections of gold candlelight, its pictures filling the 
spaces between the columns, the foreshortening of which 
prevented the subjects from being discerned. Already bril- 
liant uniforms were promenading and ample court robes 
were trailing their waves of material there. Little by little, 
the crowd increased and, like a river, variegated and shin- 
ing, filled the bed of the gallery which, notwithstanding its 
great width, had already become too narrow. 



126 A BALL AT THE WINTER PALACE 

Every eye of this crowd was turned towards the door 
through which the emperor must enter. The folding 
doors opened: the emperor, the empress, and the grand- 
dukes traversed the gallery between two suddenly-formed 
hedges of the invited guests, addressing a few words 
with gracious and noble familiarity to personages of 
distinction stationed along their way. Then the im- 
perial group disappeared through the door directly 
opposite, followed at a respectful distance by the grand 
dignitaries of State, the diplomatic body, the generals, and 
the courtiers. 

The procession had scarcely entered the ball-room be- 
fore the eye was installed there, equipped this time with a 
good opera-glass. It was like a furnace of light and heat, 
a blaze so intense as to seem almost like a conflagration. 
Cordons of fire ran along the cornices ; in the spaces be- 
tween the windows high stands, with a thousand arms 
each, blazed like burning bushes ; hundreds of chandeliers 
hung from the ceilings, like fiery constellations in the 
midst of a phosphorescent fog. And all these lights, 
interlacing their rays, made a most dazzling illumi- 
nation. 

The first impression, especially at this height on leaning 
over this gulf of light, is a sort of vertigo ; at first, across the 
waves of light from the mirrors, the glitter of the gold, the 
sparkle of the diamonds, the flash of the jewels, and the 
sheen of rich material, nothing can be distinguished. A 
swarmlike scintillation prevents you from seizing any 
forms ; then soon the pupil grows accustomed to the 



A BALL AT THE WINTER PALACE 



27 



dazzle and chases the black butterflies that flutter before 
it as after looking at the sun ; from one end to the other, 
it embraces this gigantic hall all in marble and white stucco, 
the polished walls of which shine like the jaspers and por- 
phyries in the Babylonian architecture of Martin's en- 
gravings, vaguely reflecting lights and objects. 

The kaleidoscope, with its falling apart of coloured 
particles that ceaselessly re-form in new figures ; or the 
chromatrope, with its expansions and contractions, where a 
painting becomes a flower, then changes its petals for the 
points of a crown, and ends by whirling into a sun, pass- 
ing from a ruby to an emerald, from a topaz to an ame- 
thyst around a diamond centre, can alone, thousands of 
times enlarged, give an idea of this moving parterre of 
gold, precious stones, and flowers, changing its glittering 
arabesques by means of its perpetual agitation. 

At the entrance of the imperial family, this moving 
effulgence came to rest, and you could distinguish faces 
and persons across the subdued scintillation. 

In Russia, the court balls open with what is called a 
polonaise : this is not a dance, but a sort of a parade, a 
procession, a torch-march. Those who take part in it 
divide in such a way as to leave in the centre of the ball- 
room a sort of avenue of which they form the hedges. 
When everybody is in place, the orchestra plays an air in 
a majestic and slow rhythm, and the promenade begins ; it 
is led by the Emperor, who gives his hand to a princess, or 
a lady whom he wishes to honour. 

Behind the imperial family, come the high officers of the 



128 A BALL AT THE WINTER PALACE 

army and palace, the grand dignitaries each giving a hand 
to a lady. 

The procession continues to march and is recruited on 
the way : a gentleman leaves the hedge and offers his hand 
to a lady placed opposite to him, and this new couple joins 
the others and takes its place in the line, with rhythmic 
steps slowing up or accelerating according to the move- 
ment of the head. It cannot be an easy thing to march 
thus, holding merely by the finger-tips under the fire of a 
thousand readily ironical glances : the least gaucherie of 
countenance, the slightest awkwardness with the feet, an 
almost imperceptible fault in the time would be noticed. 
Military habits help many of the men, but how diificult for 
the women ! The majority of them acquit themselves ad- 
mirably, and of more than one of them you could say : 
Et vera incessu patuit dea I They pass along lightly beneath 
their plumes, their flowers, and their diamonds, modestly 
lowering their eyes or letting them wander with an air of 
perfect innocence, manoeuvring their waves of silk and 
lace with a movement of the body or a little stroke of the. 
heel, refreshing themselves with a flutter of the fan, as 
much at ease as if they were walking in the solitary avenue 
of a park. 

More than one great actress has never learnt how to 
move in so noble, graceful and simple a manner while the 
world is gazing at her. 

When the polonaise has traversed the salon and the 
gallery, the ball begins. The dances have nothing char- 
acteristic in them ; they are quadrilles, waltzes, and redowas 



A BALL AT THE WINTER PALACE 



129 



as in Paris, London, Madrid, Vienna, and everywhere else 
in the fashionable world ; except, however, the mazourka 
which is danced at St. Petersburg Vv^ith a perfection and 
elegance unknown elsewhere. Local customs are every- 
where disappearing and first of all they desert the upper 
ranks of society. To find them anew, one must with- 
draw from the centres of civilization and descend to the 
depths of the people ! 

The general effect, however, was charming : the dance 
formed amid the splendid crowd which arranged itself sym- 
metrically to make room for it ; the whirl of the waltz dis- 
tended the robes like the skirts of whirling dervishes, and 
the rapid motion lengthened out the strings of diamonds 
and the swords of gold and silver in serpentine gleams 
like flashes of lightning ; and the little gloved hands resting 
on the epaulettes of the waltzers looked like white camellias 
in vases of massive gold. 

After an hour or two of bird's eye observation, the eye 
transported itself beneath the arches of another hall 
through mysterious and labyrinth-like passages, where the 
distant sounds of the orchestra and the fete died away in 
indistinct murmurings. A comparative darkness reigned in 
this enormous hall : it was here that the supper was to take 
place. Many cathedrals are less vast. In the background, 
through the shadows, the white lines of the tables were 
outlined ; in the corners vaguely glimmered gigantic blocks 
of indistinct orfevrerie sharply spangled flashing back a ray 
coming I know not whence : these were the sideboards. A 
velvet platform, revealed steps leading to a table formed like 



1 30 A BALL AT THE WINTER PALACE 

a horseshoe. In silent activity came and went lackeys in 
full livery, major-domos, and gastronomic officials, putting 
the last touch to the viands. A few stray lights spotted 
this dark background, like sparks upon burning paper. 

However, innumerable candles filled the chandeliers and 
followed the cordons of the friezes and the outlines of the 
arcades. They sprang up white from their bunched 
candelabra like pistils in the calixes of flowers, but not the 
slightest luminous star trembled at their tips. One might 
have called them frozen stalactites ; and already was heard, 
like the rush of overflowing waters, the heavy sound of the 
approaching throng. — The Emperor appeared at the thresh- 
old : it was like a fiat lux. A subtle flame ran from one 
candle to another, as quick as lightning : everything be- 
came illuminated at a single stroke and a flood of light 
suddenly filled the immense hall, aglow as if by magic. 
This sudden transition from penumbra to the most brilliant 
light was truly fairy-like. In our prosaic century every 
wonder must be explained : threads of gun-cotton con- 
nected all the wicks soaked with an inflammable essence, 
and a light applied in seven or eight places, propagated 
itself instantly. With gas-lights lowered and raised one 
could produce an analogous effect ; but gas, as we know, is 
not used at the Winter Palace. They burn nothing but 
candles of the purest wax. It is in Russia only that 
the bees now contribute to illumination. The Empress 
took her place with several personages of high distinction 
upon the platform where stood the horseshoe table. Behind 
her gilt arm-chair unfolded, like a gigantic floral firework, an 



A BALL AT THE WINTER PALACE 



131 



immense sheaf of white and pink camellias piled against the 
marble wall. Twelve negroes of large size chosen from 
among the best specimens of the African race, dressed a la 
mameluk^ — a white turban twisted and rolled, a green 
round jacket with golden coins, full trousers of red held by 
a belt of cashmire, the whole braided and embroidered on 
all the seams, descended and mounted the steps of the 
platform, handing the plates to the lackeys or taking them 
from their hands with movements full of the grace and 
dignity peculiar to Eastern races, although their employ- 
ment was servile. These Orientals having forgotten 
Desdemdna, did their duties with a majestic air and gave 
to this European/?/^ an Asiatic cachet in the best taste. 

Without being shown to their places, the invited guests 
placed themselves at the tables intended for them. Rich 
epergnes^ silvered and gilt, representing groups of figures, or 
flowers, or mythological or fantastical ornaments, garnished 
the centres ; and candelabra alternated with pyramids of 
fruits and set pieces. Regarded from a height, the brilliant 
symmetry of the crystals and porcelains, the silver and the 
flowers, was understood better than from below. A double 
row of women's necks glittering with diamonds, and 
framed in lace, ranged the whole length of the table-cloths, 
disclosing their beauties to the invisible eye, whose glance 
could also wander among the flowers, the leaves, the 
feathers, and the jewels. 

The Emperor visited the tables, addressing a few words 
to those he wished to distinguish, sitting down sometimes 
and moistening his lips with a glass of champagne, then 



132 



A BALL AT THE WINTER PALACE 



withdrawing to do the same elsewhere. These stops of a 
(ew moments are considered a great mark of favour. 

After supper, the dances were resumed ; but the night 
was drawing on. It was time to leave ; thejete could only 
repeat itself, and for a purely ocular enjoyment it no longer 
offered the same interest. The sleigh that had crossed 
the square to stop at a little door in the alley separating the 
Winter Palace from the Hermitage, reappeared, making its 
way to the side of St. Isaac's Church, and bringing a 
pelisse and a fur cap which completely covered the face. 
As if the sky wished to rival the splendours of the earth, 
an aurora borealis threw into the night its polar fireworks 
with rockets of silver, gold, purple, and mother-of-pearl, 
extinguishing the stars with its phosphorescent irradiations. 



FONTAINEBLEAU 

GRANT ALLEN 

WHAT Versailles is to the Augustan age of Louis 
Quatorze, that and more is Fontainebleau to the 
French Renaissance. As the Palace in the Marsh reflects 
and preserves for us the glories of the Grand Monarch, so 
the Palace in the Forest reflects and preserves for us the 
glories of the gay and splendour-loving kings from Fran- 
cois Premier to Henri Quatre. It embodies in itself at a 
single glance what may fairly be called the age of the 
Medici in France, and shows us at one coup d'ceil the entire 
history and development of Renaissance architecture among 
the French people. Its great halls and long galleries are 
replete to this day with memories of the giddy butterfly 
throng which crowded the court of " the kings who 
amused themselves." 

From a very early period, a Chateau of the French kings 
occupied the site of the existing palace. But of this build- 
ing not a single relic now shows externally in any part of 
the facade, with the solitary exception of one mediaeval 
turret, assigned to Saint Louis, and still adjoining the Cour 
Ovale of the modern palace. The origin of the first 
Chateau was simple and natural enough. It existed as a 
hunting tower in the midst of a royal forest. In our own 
day, that wild woodland region with its strange sandstone 
rocks and deep parallel valleys envisages itself to most of 



134 



FONTAINEBLEAU 



US as a mere appanage of the great mansion which skirts its 
fringe. But, in reality, it is the forest, of course, which 
created the palace, and not the palace which created the 
forest. Some thirty and five miles south-east of Paris, the 
Seine bends round and partly traverses a remarkable district 
of long sandy ridges, tilted up at an angle as the last sub- 
siding ripple of that great secular earth-wave which pro- 
duced through slow ages the elevation of the central Euro- 
pean axis in the Alpine region. From time immemorial, 
this light and somewhat sterile soil has been covered by a 
thick growth of native oaks and beeches. The maritime 
pines and Riga spruces, indeed, which add so greatly to the 
picturesque effect of the woodland at the present day, are 
but recent introductions from the Mediterranean and Baltic 
shore ; and the whole forest as we now know it, has been 
trimmed and dressed by the obtrusive art of the modern 
planter, out of all similitude to its antique self. But the 
deciduous trees are for the most part indigenous; and the 
few stags and wild boars still carefully preserved by the 
game-keepers of the Republic represent the descendants of 
a far wilder fauna which Merwing and Carling may well 
have hunted a dozen centuries since under the spreading 
boughs of those ancient oaks that bear to-day the quaint 
names of Pharamond and of Charlemagne. 

The original Chateau, of which St. Louis's bed-chamber 
forms the chief remaining portion, was probably founded 
under Louis VIL in the Twelfth Century. The Chapel 
of Saint Saturnin, the first predecessor of the existing 
church, has for Englishmen indeed a special interest from 



FONTAINEBLEAU 



135 



the fact that it was consecrated by Thomas a Becket dur- 
ing his period of exile from the anger of Henry at the 
French Court. The Chateau was a favourite residence of 
the saintly Louis IX. whose name still clings to the arcade 
of the Cour Ovale, though scarcely a trace of his buildings 
has survived the complete reconstruction of the exterior 
front under Francois Premier. The Fontainebleau of those 
days, in fact, was a feudal castle of the frowning type with 
which we are all so familiar along the banks of the Loire 
or among the dales of Normandy. Nothing could be more 
different than its gloomy turrets, its narrow windows, its 
airless halls, and its mediaeval tortuousness, from the light, 
the space, the air, the brightness of its Renaissance 
successor. 

At last, however, Francois L came. By his time, the 
character of the French monarchy — the character of the 
French nation — had undergone a complete and lasting 
change. Louis Onze had done his cruel work both 
wisely and well. The feudal spirit was half broken ; the 
task of Richelieu was more than half begun. Unification 
and absolutism were the order of the day all over Europe. 
Artillery had destroyed the power of the great nobles in 
their massive castles. The introduction of gunpowder, 
it has been well said, ruined feudalism. Fortresses which 
had been impregnable against the attacks of the Middle 
Ages, crumbled to pieces before one volley of the royal 
cannon. Throughout Europe, the crown became every- 
where irresistible. As a natural result of this great social 
revolution, a Renaissance in architecture became inevi- 



136 



FONTAINEBLEAU 



table in the west, the kings and rulers of France and 
England exchanged the gloomy darkness of the mediaeval 
stronghold for the light and air and spaciousness of the 
Italian mansion. The merchant republics of Italy were 
already familiar with great princely palaces like the Pitti, 
and the Strozzi, or the magnificent mansions which line 
the long curve of the Grand Canal. Peace under the 
strong hand of the royal despot, were he Valois or Tudor, 
made the imitation of these great houses possible in the 
north and west. Threatening walls and serried battle- 
ments gave way as if by magic to the pomp and grace of 
the Italianate mansion. Knowle and Longleet, Burleigh 
and Hatfield, Hardwick and Audley End, are familiar 
instances in England of the newer style. The high roofed 
gables, the long lines of wide windows, the jutting oriels 
that look down on the terraced Italian gardens, the vases 
and fountains, the formal walks and parterres, all mark the 
arrival of a new epoch. The mediaeval castle was in 
essence a fortress adapted mainly for defence ; the Italian 
mansion is in essence a residence, adapted mainly for the 
display of magnificence and wealth. 

In France, this great revolution goes directly back to the 
influence of the Medici. Francois Premier began the 
Louvre and began Fontainebleau. With Louis XIII. , 
the son of a Medici mother, both were practically 
complete. The long succession of high Mansard roofs 
and connecting galleries marks the very spirit and ideal of the 
French Renaissance — its splendour, its grandeur, its vast- 
ness of aim, its want of picturesque feeling, its love of the 



FONTAINEBLEAU 



137 



magnificent, its contempt of the simple, the natural, the 
merely beautiful. Imposing Fontainebleau extorts one's 
admiration, it never attracts one's love. 

The nucleus of the existing building thus dates back 
practically to the gay days of Franr;ois Premier. It was he 
who rebuilt the chapel of Saint Saturnin, and erected that 
magnificent pile of the Porte Doree, whose lavish display 
of glass in its broad-bayed windows looks like a modern 
protest against the loopholes and embrasures of the Middle 
Ages, It was he, too, who began the great Galerie des 
Fetes, afterwards completed by Henri II., whose name it 
now bears, as well as the Galerie d'Ulysse, pulled down at 
a later date by Louis XV., to make room for the too 
numerous ladies of his Sybaritic court. It is to Francois 
equally that we owe the Cour Ovale, and the splendid 
Porte Dauphine or Baptistery, which serves as its gateway. 
The initial F^ so familiar to all of us on the exquisite 
facade of the oldest portion of the Louvre, reappears in 
many places on the gallery of the Cour de la Fontaine. 
The only part of the gardens, recalling the Boboli or the 
villas of Florence, which can with certainty be ascribed to 
this earliest date, is that known as the Orangerie and the 
Parterre du Tibre. But the grotto of what is now the 
Jardin Anglais was built by Francois as a Salle de Bain 
for his favourite, the Duchesse d'Etampes. Nothing now 
remains of that voluptuous retreat except the satyrs of the 
doorvyay and some torsos of rough sandstone worn out of 
all semblance of human limbs and muscles, and relegated to 
a place in the existing stables. 



138 



FONTAINEBLEAU 



As yet, however, the artistic impulse came entirely from 
Italy. Serlio, the architect, superintended the design; 
painters and sculptors from beyond the Alps contributed 
the decorations. French art in those days was still feeble 
and nascent. Florence sent Leonardo da Vinci and Andrea 
del Sarto to the new palace at Fontainebleau ; the rising 
school of Primaticcio and Niccolo dell' Abbate, whose 
artistic existence almost sums itself up in the work they 
performed here. Indeed, it is not too much to say that 
the pupils of Giulio Romano produced the profoundest 
effects upon the French Renaissance, and influenced every 
work of art of the entire period from the gallery of 
Francois Premier to the Rubens's in the Louvre. 

The F. and the Salamander of the founder of the palace 
are to be found abundantly on many portions of his mag- 
nificent erection. But the finest hall of all, the Salle des 
Fetes, bears now the name of Galerie de Henri II., though 
built by Francois, because Henri decorated it in the garish 
taste of the time to meet the wishes of his mistress, Diane 
de Poictiers. This hall still remains the glory of Fontaine- 
bleau. Ninety feet long by thirty broad, and profusely dec- 
orated, it speaks in every part the taste of that gay and fan- 
tastic epoch. Ten colossal round arches form the bays of 
the windows ; five give upon the parterre, and five on the 
Cour Ovale. The ornate ceiling is divided into octagonal 
panels, richly wrought in architrave, frieze, and cornice, 
and bearing in relief the intertwined initials of Henri him- 
self and of the frail Diane. Primaticcio and Niccolo sup- 
plied the frescoes ; nameless Italian artists moulded the 



FONTAINEBLEAU 



139 



Stucco fretwork. The parquetry of the floor vies with the 
roof in magnificence. This gorgeous apartment may well 
recall the rooms of the gods in the Pitti Palace, and is only 
surpassed in elaborate over-ornamentation and profuseness 
of handicraft by the gaudy Galerie d'Apollon in the 
Louvre. 

When Henri II. died, mortally wounded in a tournament 
in the Palace Courts, many things fell with him — tourna- 
ments themselves amongst others, and mediaevalism in France, 
and Diane de Poictiers. Catherine de' Medici sent the fa- 
vourite packing to her Chateau d'Anet, and bore rule herself 
in her stead in the half completed palace. The new king, 
Francois II., was a true son of Fontainebleau. Here he 
was born in 1543, and here, a boy of seventeen, he married 
Mary Stuart, whom he left a girl-widow so shortly after, to 
exchange the luxurious joys of Fontainebleau for the 
cramped closets of Holyrood and the austerities of John 
Knox and his brother Calvinists. Under Charles IX., the 
work still went forward as before, and Primaticcio in his 
old age painted the frescoes of the Galerie d'Ulysse, after- 
wards ruthlessly destroyed under Louis XV. 

Beyond being born in the palace, Henri III. contributed 
as little to the history of Fontainebleau as to that of his 
dominions generally. But Henri IV. left no small mark of 
his masterful hand on the great growing pile whose over- 
grown area he well-nigh doubled. The Cour des Offices, 
the Cour des Princes, the Galerie de Diane, the balustrades 
in the Fountain Court, the decorations in the Chapel of 
the Holy Trinity, the park with its grand canal and its or- 



140 



FONTAINEBLEAU 



namental waters, all date from the days of the greatest of 
the Bourbons. But the French Renaissance was not at its 
zenith. Married though he was to an Italian princess, 
Henri entrusted his work for the most part to native work- 
men. Paul Bril and Ambroise Dubois painted and deco- 
rated the greater part of the new halls ; the heads of Mer- 
cury, in the courtyard which still bears the name of Henri 
Ouatre are from the chisel of a later French sculptor, Gilles 
Guerin ; while the simple but noble doorway which opens 
upon the Place d'Armes is the work of a local architect, 
Francois Jamin of Avon. 

It was at Fontainebleau that Marie de'Medici gave birth 
to Louis XIII., who was baptized with his sisters under 
the quaint and ornate cupola of the Porte Dauphine, known 
ever since from that cause by the name of the Baptistery. 
To this one of its sons the palace owes its latest main addi- 
tions. He it was who built the handsome horse-shoe stair- 
case in the Cour des Adieux, the masterpiece of Lemercier. 
With that addition, the history of Fontainebleau practically 
ends. Events of importance in the annals of France took 
place there later ; but they are not events in the annals of 
Fontainebleau. The great pile as we know it was then 
really complete ; it remains to us a vast museum of Renais- 
sance art and Renaissance feeling. Subsequent ages have 
destroyed, or restored, or renovated, or tampered with it, 
but they have not added to it, and the reason is clear. 
Louis Quatorze created Versailles ; and the rise of Versailles 
was the downfall of Fontainebleau. 

Some few landmarks of its subsequent vicissitudes, how- 



FONTAINEBLEAU 



141 



ever, are well known to most of us. Louis Quatorze 
gilded it up, of course — what did not Louis gild ? Le Notre 
laid out the gardens — where did not Le Notre spread his 
devastating gravel ? Henrietta Maria of England took 
refuge here among her own people when Charles had lost 
his head ; Christina of Sweden had made use of its hos- 
pitality as a capital opportunity to murder Monaldeschi. 
Few buildings, indeed, have seen so many historic events ; 
for here Louis Quatorze signed the Revocation of the 
Edict of Nantes which deprived France at one blow of a 
million of citizens ; here Conde died; here James IL con- 
soled himself with the consolations of a heavenly crown for 
the loss of an earthly one ; and here Peter of Muscovy got 
royally drunk after his wont with all his suite, and indulged 
in Russian horse-play in the ponds and gardens. Under 
Louis Quinze, of funest memory, the decadence began ; 
but still, as of old, princes feasted and drank, married and 
were given in marriage, under the high roofs of the palace. 
The king himself was united here to Maria Leczinska. 
But the earthquake was at hand, for Voltaire came to stay, 
and Jean Jacques Rousseau heard the court applaud his 
Dev'in du Village. Louis Seize, good honest man, came 
often to hunt, but the Revolution came too and gutted the 
Palace. During Napoleon's wars, it served as a barrack 
for prisoners. When Monarchy revived, Napoleon spent 
ten millions of francs in restoring and refurnishing it. 
Later on he used it as a prison for his spiritual father, Pius 
the Seventh; here he divorced Josephine, and here he lived 
with Marie Louise of Austria. Here too he signed his 



142 



FONTAINEBLEAU 



famous abdication, and reviewed a year later, in the self- 
same court, the grenadiers of the Hundred Days who bore 
him back to the Tuileries. There its memories end. What 
need to speak of lesser things that have happened since, and 
obscure the recollection of those great days in its history ? 



THE RICCARDI PALACE 

ALEXANDRE DUMAS 

THE Riccardi Palace was built by Cosmo the Elder, 
whom his country turned out twice as a beginning 
and ended by calling him its father. 

Cosmo arrived at one of those happy epochs at which 
everything in a nation tends to expand at once, and a man 
of genius has every facility for being great. In fact, the 
brilliant era of the republic had arrived with him : the arts 
were making their appearance on every side. Brunelleschi 
was building his churches, Donatello was carving his stat- 
ues and Orcagna his porticos, Masaccio was covering 
the walls with his frescoes, and finally public prosperity, 
keeping pace with the progress of the arts, rendered Tus- 
cany, situated between Lombardy, the States of the Church 
and the Venetian Republic, not only the most powerful but 
also the happiest in Italy. 

Cosmo was born to immense wealth which he had almost 
doubled, and without being anything more than a citizen he 
had acquired a strange influence. Being outside the gov- 
ernment, he made no attacks upon it, but neither did he 
flatter it. If the government followed the right path it was 
sure of his praise ; if it departed from the right way it did 
not escape his blame ; and the praise or blame of Cosmo 
the Elder was of supreme importance, for his weight, his 
wealth and his clients gave to Cosmo the rank of a public 



144 '^^^ RICCARDI PALACE 

man. He was not yet the head of the government, but he 
was already more than that ; — he was its censor. 

Thus we can understand what a tempest must be secretly 
brewing for such a man. Cosmo heard it muttering and 
saw it coming ; but, entirely occupied with the vast works 
that concealed his great projects, he did not even turn his 
head towards the rising storm, but finished the chapel of 
St. Lorenzo, built the church of the Dominican convent of 
St. Mark, erected the monastery of S. Frediano, and, finally, 
laid the foundations of the beautiful Palace of the Via 
Larga, now called the Riccardi Palace. Only, when his 
enemies threatened him too openly, since the time for 
struggle had not yet arrived for him, he left Florence and 
went to Bugallo, the cradle of his race, to build the con- 
vents of Bosco and St. Francis ; returned under the pre- 
text of having a look at his novitiate chapel of the Fathers 
of the Holy Cross and of the Camandule Convent of the 
Angels ; then again departed to press forward the work on 
his villas of Careggi, CafFaggio, Fiesole and Tribbio ; and 
founded a hospital for poor pilgrims at Jerusalem. This 
being done, he returned to see in what condition the aff'airs 
of the republic were, and to look after his palace of the 
Via Larga. 

And all these immense buildings arose from the ground 
at once, occupying a whole world of labourers, workmen 
and architects; and five million crowns were spent upon 
them without the luxurious citizen's appearing in the slight- 
est degree impoverished by this constant and royal expendi- 
ture. 




THE RICCARDl PALACE, ITALY, 



THE RICCARDI PALACE I45 

This was because Cosmo was, in fact, wealthier than many 
of the kings of the day, his father Giovanni had possessed 
nearly four millions in cash and eight or ten in paper, and 
by banking operations he had more than quintupled that 
sum. In various parts of Europe, he had sixteen active 
banking-houses either in his own name or in those of his 
agents. In Florence, everybody was in his debt, for his 
purse was open to all, and this generosity was in some 
people's eyes so clearly the result of calculation that it was 
asserted that it was his custom to advise war so as to force 
the ruined citizens to have recourse to him. 

But it was a protracted struggle : Cosmo, driven from 
Florence, left as a proscribed man and returned a triumpher. 
Thenceforward Cosmo adopted that policy that his grandson 
Lorenzo followed afterwards : he devoted himself to his 
commerce, his exchanges and his monuments, leaving his 
vengeance to the care of his partisans who were then in 
power. The proscriptions were so long and the executions 
so numerous that one of his most intimate and faithful 
friends thought he ought to go and tell him that he was de- 
populating the city. Cosmo raised his eyes from an ex- 
change calculation on which he was engaged, laid his hand 
on the shoulder of the messenger of mercy, gazed at him 
fixedly and said with an imperceptible smile : " I woulJ 
rather depopulate than lose it." And then the inflexible 
arithmetician returned to his work. 

Thus he grew old ; rich and honoured, but struck by the 
hand of God within his own family. By his wife he had 
had several children, only one of whom survived him. 



146 THE RICCARDI PALACE 

Therefore, broken down and impotent, when he had him- 
self carried through the vast halls of his immense palace to 
inspect the sculptures, gilding, and frescoes, he sadly shook 
his head and said : " Alas ! alas ! this is a very large house 
for such a small family ! " 

In fact, he left, as sole heir to his name, his possessions, 
and his power, Pietro de'Medici, who, coming between 
Cosmo the Father of his Country and Lorenzo the Magni- 
ficent, obtained as his only surname that of Pietro the Gouty. 

The refuge of the Greek savants driven from Constanti- 
nople, the cradle of the renaissance of the arts during the 
Fourteenth and the Fifteenth Century, and now the seat of 
the meetings of the Delia Crusca Academy, the Riccardi 
Palace was successively occupied by Pietro the Gouty and 
by Lorenzo the Magnificent who retired thither after the 
Pazzi conspiracy as his grandfather had done after his exile. 
Lorenzo bequeathed the palace with his immense collection 
of precious stones, antique cameos, splendid armour and 
original manuscripts to his son Pietro who deserved the 
title not of Pietro the Gouty, but Pietro the Mad. 

It was the latter who opened the gates of Florence to 
Charles VIII. and delivered to him the keys of Sarzane, 
Pietra-Santa, Pisa, Libra-Fatta, and Livorno, and who un- 
dertook to make the Republic pay him as a subsidy the sum 
of two hundred thousand florins. 

Besides this, in his palace of Via Larga he offered a hos- 
pitality that the King of France was quite disposed to take 
even if it had not been offered. In fact, as everybody 
knows, Charles VIII. entered Florence as a conqueror and 



THE RICCARDI PALACE 



147 



not as an ally, mounted on his battle-horse, with lance in 
rest and visor lowered : thus he traversed the whole city 
from the San Friano gate to Pietro's palace, the latter and 
his followers having been driven from the city by the Flor- 
entine lords the day before. 

The Riccardi Palace was the scene of the discussion of 
the, treaty concluded by Charles VIII. and Pietro in the 
name of the republic, — a treaty that the republic was 
unwilling to recognize. Matters went to extremes and the 
parties were on the verge of taking up arms, for the depu- 
ties having been introduced into this great hall in the pres- 
ence of Charles VIII. who received them seated and with- 
out removing his hat, the royal secretary, standing beside 
the throne, began to read the conditions of this treaty 
article by article, and as each new article created fresh dis- 
cussion, Charles VIII. impatiently exclaimed : " It shall be 
so, however, or I will have my trumpets sounded ! " 
" Very well," replied Pietro Capponi, the Secretary of the 
Republic, snatching the parchment from the hands of the 
reader and tearing it to pieces, " very well. Sire, have your 
trumpets sounded and we will have our bells rung ! " 

That rejoinder saved Florence. The King of France 
believed that the Republic was as powerful as she was 
proud. Pietro Capponi had already dashed out of the 
room : Charles had him called back and then presented 
other conditions that were accepted. 

Eleven days later, the King left Florence for Naples, let- 
ting his soldiers devastate treasures, galleries, collections 
and libraries. 



148 THE RICCARDI PALACE 

The Riccardi Palace remained empty for eighteen years, 
while the exile of the Medicis lasted ; at length, at the 
end of that period, they returned, brought back by the 
Spaniards, and notwithstanding this powerful aid, they re- 
entered, said the capitulation, not as princes, but as simple 
citizens. 

But at length the gigantic trunk had put forth such 
mighty branches that its sap began to dry up and' the tree 
gradually to wither. In fact, when Lorenzo II. was dead 
and laid in his tomb that was sculptured by Michelangelo, 
only three bastards remained of all the race of Cosmo the 
Elder: Hippolyte, bastard of Julian II., a cardinal; 
Julio, bastard of Julio the Elder who had been assassinated 
by the Pazzi, who became Pope under the name of 
Clement VII. ; and finally Alexander, Duke of Tuscany, 
bastard of Julian IL, or Clement VII., it is not clear which. 
As they stayed all once for an instant in Florence, lodging 
on the same square, it received the mocking name of the 
Square of the Three Mules. 

To the same degree that the Medicis of the elder branch 
had at first been held in honour, so it had become execrated 
and fallen into contempt at this period. Therefore the 
Florentines only awaited an opportunity to drive Alexander 
and Hippolyte out of Florence; but their uncle Clement 
VII. on the pontifical throne afforded them too potent a 
support for the last remnants of the republican party to 
dare to undertake anything against them. 

The sack of Rome by the soldiers of the Constable of 
Bourbon, and the imprisonment of the Pope in the Castle 



THE RICCARDI PALACE 



149 



of St. Angelo afforded the Florentines the opportunity 
they awaited. They immediately seized it, and the 
Medicis went into exile for the third time. Clement VII. 
who was a man of much resource, extricated himself from 
the affair by selling seven cardinals' hats, with the proceeds 
of which he paid part of his ransom, and by pledging five 
more as guarantee for the remainder. Then, as on ac- 
count of this guarantee he was allowed a little more liberty, 
he took advantage of it to escape from Rome disguised as 
a valet, and gained Orvieto. The Florentines were there- 
fore quite tranquil as to the future on seeing Charles the 
Fifth a conqueror and the Pope a fugitive. 

Unfortunately, Charles the Fifth had been elected Em- 
peror in 15 19, and he needed to be crowned. Interest thus 
brought together those whom it had separated. Clement 
VII. undertook to crown Charles the Fifth j and the 
latter promised to capture Florence and to make it the 
dowry of his natural daughter, Margaret of Austria, who 
was affianced to Alexander. 

The two promises were religiously kept. Charles the 
Fifth was crowned at Bologna, for in his new tenderness 
for the Pope he did not want to see the ravage done by his 
troops in the holy city ; and after a terrible siege in which 
Florence was defended by Michelangelo and capitulated by 
Malatesta, July 30, 1531, Alexander made his solemn 
entry into the future capital of his duchy. 

Alexander had almost all the vices of his epoch and very 
few of the virtues of his race. The son of a Moorish 
woman, he had inherited ardent passions. Constant in 



^50 



THE RICCARDI PALACE 



hatred and inconstant in love, he tried to have Pietro 
Strozzi assassinated and caused his cousin, Cardinal Hip- 
polyte to be poisoned. 

Therefore, there were numerous conspiracies against him 
during his reign of six years. 

Pietro Strozzi placed an immense sum in the hands of a 
Dominican friar of Naples, who was said to have great in- 
fluence with Charles the Fifth, to induce him to get Charles 
the Fifth to restore liberty to Florence, Jean Baptiste 
Cibo, Archbishop of Marseilles, tried to profit from Alex- 
ander's amour with his brother's wife, who was separated 
from her husband and lived in the Pazzi palace, by having 
him slain one day when he should come to see her in that 
palace ; and since he knew that Alexander usually wore 
beneath his clothes a coat of mail so marvellously made 
that it was proof against sword and dagger, he had a chest, 
upon which the duke was accustomed to sit when he came 
to visit the marquise, filled with powder, and this was to be 
exploded. But this conspiracy was discovered, as well as 
all others that followed with one exception. In the latter 
case, success was due to the fact that there was only one 
conspirator who accomplished everything for himself. That 
conspirator was Lorenzo de'Medici, the eldest scion of that 
younger branch that sprang from the paternal trunk with 
Lorenzo, the next brother of Cosmo the Father of his country, 

Lorenzo was born in Florence, March 25, 15 14, of 
Pietro Francisco de'Medici, a double nephew of Lorenzo, 
Cosmo's brother, and Maria Soderini, a woman of exem- 
plary goodness and recognized prudence. 



THE RICCARDI PALACE I51 

Lorenzo lost his father early, and, as he was scarcely 
nine years of age, his first instruction was given under 
his mother's supervision. But as the child learned with 
great facility, this education was very soon ended, and he 
left this female tutelage for that of Philippe Strozzi, where 
his strange character developed. He was a strange med- 
ley of mockery, restlessness, desire, suspicion, impiety, hu- 
mility and pride ; whence it resulted that, unless he had 
motives to conceal, his most intimate friends never saw 
him twice in the same mood. He was one of those her- 
maphrodite beings that capricious Nature produces in her 
periods of dissolution. 

It was in a house adjoining the Riccardi Palace that Lo- 
renzo, aided by the Spadassin Scoronconcolo, poniarded 
Duke Alexander, the natural brother of Catherine de'Med- 
ici, first Duke of Florence and last descendant of 
Cosmo the Father of the Country, for Pope Clement 
Vn. had died in 1534 and Cardinal Hippolyte in 1535; 
and on his assassination a singular thing was noticed, 
namely the six-fold combination of the number six. 
Alexander was assassinated in the year 1536, at the age 
of twenty-six, on the 6th day of January, at six o'clock 
at night, with six wounds, after having reigned six years. 

The house in which he was assassinated was situated 
on the spot where the stables now stand. 

The proverb of the evangelist ; " They that take the 
sword shall perish with the sword" was applied to Lo- 
renzo in its rigorous exactitude. Lorenzo, who had slain 
with the poignard, died by the poignard in Venice about 



152 



THE RICCARDI PALACE 



the year 1557 without any one knowing for certain what 
hand struck the blow ; it was only remembered that when 
Cosmo the First mounted the throne he swore not to 
leave the murder of Duke Alexander unpunished. 

The murderer of Alexander was the last important event 
that happened in this beautiful palace. Abandoned by 
Cosmo I. in 1540, when he resolved to live in the Pa- 
lazzo Vecchio, it was sold to the Riccardi family, whose 
name it has kept, although I believe it came again into 
the possession of the Medicis under the reign of Ferdi- 
nand II. 

To-day the famous Delia Crusca Academy holds its 
sessions there : there they sift adverbs and shell parti- 
ciples, as our good and witty Charles Nodier says. 

It is not so poetic, but it is more moral. 



RABY CASTLE 

WILLIAM HOWITT 

AS we proceed towards Barnard Castle, we suddenly 
come into view of the Castle of Raby. The road 
brings us within a few hundred yards of it. Its grey ex- 
tent of towers rises before us, with its park, well peopled 
with herds of deer, stretching around it. Comparatively 
flat again as is the situation, and which would seem to 
have been better liked by the Nevilles than more hilly 
and romantic ones, there is nothing that we recollect to 
have seen anywhere which impresses us at the first view 
with a stronger feeling of the old feudal grandeur. It 
stands in its antiquity and vastness, the fitting abode of 
the mighty Nevilles. We can almost imagine that we 
shall find them still inhabiting it. The royal Joan, walk- 
ing with her maidens on the green terrace that surrounds 
it, or the first great Earl of Westmoreland setting out 
with all his train, to scour its wide chases and dales for 
the deer, or to proceed to the Marches to chastise the 
boldness of the Scots. The exterior of the whole place 
has been well preserved in its true ancient character ; it 
is the great, grey, and stately feudal castle, 

** With all its lands and towers." 

Pennant, when he visited it, had a proper feeling of its 
exterior. "It is a noble massy building of its, kind, unin- 



154 



RABY CASTLE 



jured by any modern strokes inconsistent with the general 
taste of the edifice ; but, simply magnificent, it strikes by 
its magnitude, and that idea of strength and command nat- 
urally annexed to the view of vast walls, lofty towers, battle- 
ments, and the surrounding outworks of an old baron's resi- 
dence. The building itself, besides the courts, covers an 
acre of land ; the size may from this be concluded. The 
south front is very beautiful ; the centre is from a design of 
Inigo Jones ; nothing in the Gothic taste can be more ele- 
gant than the style and proportion of the windows. The 
rooms are very numerous, and more modern in their pro- 
portion and distribution than one would easily conceive to 
be possible within the walls of so ancient a building ; but 
by means of numerous passages and closets, many of which 
have been scooped out of the walls, and back-stairs, the 
apartments are extremely convenient, well connected, and 
at the same time perfectly distinct. Several improvements 
have been lately made, which add greatly to the spacious- 
ness and convenience of the apartments in general. The 
bed-chambers and dressing-rooms are of a good size and 
proportion, and some of the lower apartments large, and 
elegantly fitted up. One of the drawing-rooms is thirty 
feet by twenty, and the adjoining dining-room is fifty-one 
by twenty-one ; the windows of both of plate glass, and in 
the smallest and lightest of brass frames," etc. 

It is, in fact, this complete adaptation to modern uses and 
splendour, which disappoints one in the interior of Raby, 
The exterior is so fine, so feudal, so antiquely great, that 
when we step in and find ourselves at once in modern 



RABY CASTLE 1 55 

drawing-rooms, with silicen couches and gilt cornices, the 
Nevilles and their times vanish. We forget again that we 
are at Raby, the Castle of the victims of Neville's Cross, and 
of Joan, the daughter of John of Gaunt, and feel that we 
are only in the saloons of the modern Duke of Cleveland. 
We revert to the quaint description of Leland, and wish that 
we could see it as he did. " Raby is the largest castel of 
logginges in all the north countery, and is of a strong build- 
ing; but not set either on hill, or very strong ground. As 
I enterid by a causey into it, there was a litle stayre on the 
right honde ; and in the first area, were but two towers on a 
ech ende as entres, and no other buildid. In the 2 area, as 
in entring was a great gate of iren, with a tour, and 2 or 3 
mo on the right bond. These were all the three toures of 
the 3 court, as in the hart of the castel. The haul and al the 
houses of office be large and stately, and in the haul I saw an 
incredible great leame of an hart. The great chambre was 
exceeding large, but now it is fals rofid, and divided into 2 
or 3 partes. I saw ther a litle chambre wherein was in 
windowes of colorid glasse al the petigre of the Nevilles; 
but it is now taken down and glasid with clere glasse. Ther 
is a tour in the castel having the mark of 2 capital Bs for 
Bertram Bulmer. Ther is another towr bering the name 
of Jane, bastard sister to Henry IV., and wife to Rafe Neville, 
the first Erl of Westmerland. Ther 'long 3 parkes to Raby, 
whereof 2 be plenished with dere. The midle park hath 
a lodge in it ; and thereby is a chace, bering the name of 
Langeley, and hath fallowe dere. It is a 3 miles in length." 
It is, in fact, these old towers ; these old courts ; this 



156 RABY CASTLE 

great baronial hall, and the kitchen, that are objects of real 
interest in Raby ; remnants of its antiquity, the co- 
temporaries of those who stamped them with the feeling of 
belonging to them and their fortunes. The Cliffords' 
tower, and the tower of Bertram Bulmer, let us ascend to 
them, and gaze over the parks and glades of Raby, to the 
far distant scenes that once formed the princely posses- 
sions of the Nevilles. Near the top of this tower, which 
stands separated from the rest of the building, and to which 
you ascend by eighty-nine steps, are raised those old letters, 
the initials of Bertram Bulmer, mentioned by Leland, and a 
splendid prospect south eastward lies before you. Conscliff, 
Darlington, Sadberge, Long-Newton, Stockton, with the 
Cleveland Hills and " Black " Hamilton. From other 
points of the castle you catch equally noble and far views — 
the distant mountains of Hope and Arkendale, and west- 
ward the vale filled with the woods of Streatlam and Lady 
Close. 

Carriages can pass through the large Gothic saloon, or 
entrance hall into the interior court. Above the saloon is 
the old baronial hall, which forms one side of the square of 
the inner area. It is of the most magnificent proportions 
— ninety feet in length, thirty-six in breadth, and thirty-four 
in height. The roof is flat and made of wood ; the joints 
ornamented with shields of arms of the family of the 
Nevilles. Here, it is said, assembled in their time, 700 
knights who held of that family. A gallery of stone 
crosses the west end of this room used in ancient times for 
music, and that mimicry with which our ancestors were so 



RAEY CASTLE 



157 



much pleased. Unfortunately, here again our notions of 
the old times are completely disturbed. This roof, which 
no doubt is of real oak, is now smartly painted oak ; and 
this hall, which should only display massy furniture, suits 
of armour, and arms and banners properly disposed, is con- 
verted into a museum of stuffed birds, Indian dresses, and 
a heap of things which may be better and more numerously 
seen elsewhere. In fact, any ordinary room of this many- 
roomed castle might have served this need. The kitchen, 
however, remains in all its huge and unalloyed antiquity. 
" It is," says Pennant, " a magnificent and lofty square ; 
has three chimneys — one for the grate, a second for stoves, 
the third for the great cauldrons. The top is arched, and a 
small cupola lights it in the centre ; but on the sides are five 
windows, with a gallery passing all round before them, and 
four steps from each pointing down into the kitchen, but end- 
ing a great height above the floor. There have been many 
conjectures respecting their use, but they certainly must 
have been in some manner for the conveying away of 
viands. From the floor is another staircase, that conducts 
to the great hall, but the passage is now stopped. What 
hecatombs must have been carried that way ! " To this 
account must be added, that the kitchen is a square of 
thirty feet ; the side where no chimney is, opens into the 
larders ; opposite to the grate, the steps descend to the floor, 
and are wide enough for three persons abreast. On each 
of the other sides, to the right and left of the grate, are two 
windows, with five steps descending, but not low enough to 
enable the persons who should stand thereon to receive 



158 RABY CASTLE 

anything from those in the kitchen. There are narrow 
passages channeled in the walls, but not capacious enough, 
we conceive, to allow a person to bear a dish of provisions 
for the 700 knights and retainers of the Nevilles. Yet we 
may very well imagine, that in the hurry and confusion of 
such a dining, those windows and descending steps might 
be very serviceable for the delivery of orders, and the 
passages in the walls for enabling one bustling person to 
avoid another. Besides, they might have some contrivance 
by a pulley or so, to raise the dishes to the person on the 
steps. Be that as it may, the kitchen is a right ancient and 
singular relic of the genuine baronial time. 

The park has many fine woods, glades, and lawns, and 
gives prospects of far beauty, but its aspect partakes of the 
character of the interior of the castle — newness. We are 
surprised to see so little timber bearing a relative antiquity 
to the castle. The trees are comparatively young. You 
see groups and plantations of a very modern date. The 
whole has the air rather of a place new made, than of one 
old as the days of Canute, who is said to have built some 
part of the original house. You do not see those old, grey, 
and gnarled oaks around you that you see in the forests of 
Sherwood, Needwood — Chartley and other parks. It seems 
as if some great revolution, as is the fact, has passed over 
it ; and that in its days of change, the axe of the spoiler 
has laid low its ancient forests. The castle looks like a 
grey patriarch left amid a more juvenile race. Let us re- 
joice that the strong wall of the stout old Nevilles have de- 
fied the ravages of politics as well as of time, and that 



RABY CASTLE 



159 



future generations may see in them a fine example of what 
the habitation of the great old English noble was. For my 
part, I looked on the old house with eyes of affection. It 
had, through the beautiful ballad of the Hermit of Wark- 
worth^ been to me a dream of youthful poetry. I was car- 
ried back into the days when at school we chanted that 
lovely poem over, day by day, under sunny walls and in 
our walks, and even at night when we should have been 
asleep. There was in it a spirit so pure, so refined, so del- 
icate, so full of beauty, of love, and of heroic magnanimity, 
that it mingled itself entirely with the pulses of our hearts, 
because our hearts were then like it in soul, in tempera- 
ment, and in imaginative freedom. What dales of North- 
umberland — what mountains, and glens, and chieftains' 
towers of Scotland, did it not bring to our spirits' vision ! 
With what eagerness did we follow the forlorn Sir Bertram 
and his brother, in their northern quest for the lost fair Isa- 
bel of Widrington. How did we weep over the catastrophe ! 
— and when the young Earl Percy and his lovely bride, of 
the house of Neville, appeared for our comfort, how ear- 
nestly did we follow the venerable prior who, to propitiate 
the princely parents of Eleanor, 

" Then straight to Raby's distant walls 
Did kindly wend his way." 

And how many times did we clap our hands as we learnt 

that 

" Meantime their suit such favour found 
At Raby's stately hall ; 
Earl Neville and his princely spouse 
Now gladly pardon all. 



l6o RABY CASTLE 

She, suppliant at her nephew's throne. 

The royal grace implored ; 
To all the honours of his race 

The Percy was restored ! " 

Mr, Surtees has written a ballad full of the true spirit of that 
composition, suggested by a scene in Raby Park — Langley 
Dale ; a beautiful dale and ancient chase, belonging to Raby 
Castle. An old tower, close by the park, is said to have 
been the residence of a mistress of the last Earl of West- 
moreland. Mr. Surtees's ballad, however, rather connects 
itself with the general circurristances of " The Rising of the 
North " than with this particular incident, and, like " The 
Flowers of the Forest," perpetuates a natural and beautiful 
sentiment, which must have been deeply and long felt, on 
beholding Raby after that fatal event. With this poem we 
will close our visit to Raby. 

LANGLEY DALE. 

As I down Raby Park did pass, 

I heard a fair maid weep and wail. 
The chiefest of her song it was. 

Farewell the sweets of Langley Dale. 

The bonny mavis cheers his love. 

The throstlecock sings in the glen; 
But I must never hope to rove 

Within the sweet Langley Dale again. 

The wild-rose blushes in the brae. 

The primrose shows its blossom pale ; 

But I must bid adieu for aye. 

To all the joys of Langley Dale. 



RABY CASTLE i6i 

The days of mirth and peace are fled, . 

Youth's golden locks to silver turn ; 
Each northern flowret droops its head 

By Marwood Chase and Langley Burn. 

False Southrons crop each lovely flower. 

And throw their blossoms to the gale ; 
Our foes have spoilt the sweetest bower — 

Alas ! for bonny Langley Dale. 



CASTEL DEL MONTE 

EDWARD LEAR 

TO the south, on a spur of the hills overlooking the 
maritime part of the province of Basilicata and 
Capitanata, stands Minervino, and thither we directed our 
course, over undulating green meadows which descend to 
the plain, and we arrived about an hour before sunset at 
the foot of the height on which the town is situated. 
Minervino enjoys a noble prospect northward, over the 
level of Cannae to the bay and mountain of Gargano, at 
which distance the outspread breadth of plain is so beautifully 
delicate in its infinity of clear lines, as to resemble sea 
more than earth. The town is a large clean and thriving 
place, with several streets flanked by loggie, and altogether dif- 
ferent in its appearance and in its population from Abruzzese 
or Calabrese towns. The repose, or to speak more plainly, 
the stagnation of the latter, contrasts very decidedly with 
these communities of Apulia — all bustle and animation — - 
where well-paved streets, good houses, and strings of laden 
mules, proclaim an advance in commercial civilization. 

We encountered in the street Don Vincenzino Todeschi, 
who on reading a letter of introduction, given to us for 
him by Signor Manassei, seemed to consider our dwelling 
with him as a matter of course, and shaking hands with us 
heartily, begged us to go to his house and use it as our 
own ; he was busy then, but would join us at supper. 



CASTEL DEL MONTE 1 63 

P and I are not a little perplexed as to what we 

shall do to-morrow, for, owing to time running short, we 
have but one day left ere we return towards Naples. 
Canosa (ancient Cannae) and Castel del Monte, are the 
two points, either of which we could be content to reach, 
but as each demands a hard day's work, we finally resolve 

to divide them, P choosing Canosa, and I the old 

castle of Frederick Barbarossa, of which I had heard so 
much as one of the wonders of Apulia. 

September 2j. — Before daylight each of us set off on his 

separate journey on horseback, — P with the bulky 

Don Sebastiano to Canosa, I to the Castel del Monte, with 
a guardiano of Don Vincenzino's family. Oh me ! what a 
day of fatigue and tiresome labour ! Almost immediately 
on leaving Minervino we came to the dullest possible 
country, — elevated stony plains — weariest of barren undu- 
lations stretching in unbroken ugliness towards Altamura 
and Gravina. Much of this hideous tract is ploughed 
earth, and here and there we encountered a farm house 
with its fountain : no distant prospect ever relieves these 
dismal shrubless Murgie (for so is this part of the province 
of Bari called), and flights of " calendroni," with a few 
skylarks above, and scattered crocuses below, alone vary 
the sameness of the journey. At length, after nearly five 
hours of slow riding, we came in sight of the castle, which 
was the object of my journey ; it is built at the edge of 
these plains on one of the highest, but gradually rising 
eminences, and looks over a prospect perfectly amazing as to 
its immense extent and singular character. One vast pale 



164 CASTEL DEL MONTE 

pink map, stretching to Monte Gargano, and the plains of 
Foggia, northward is at your feet ; southward, Terra di 
Bari, and Terra di Otranto, fade into the horizon ; and 
eastward, the boundary of this extensive level is always the 
blue Adriatic, along which, or near its shore, you see, as in 
a chart, all the maritime towns of Puglia in succession, 
from Barletta southward towards Brindisi. 

The barren stony hill from which you behold all this ex- 
traordinary outspread of plain, has upon it one solitary and 
remarkable building, the great hunting palace, called Castel 
del Monte, erected in the Twelfth Century by the 
Emperor Barbarossa, or Frederick II. Its attractions at 
first sight are those of position and singularity of form, 
which is that of an octagon, with a tower on each of the 
eight corners. But to an architect, the beautiful masonry 
and exquisite detail of the edifice (although it was never 
completed, and has been robbed of its fine carved-work for 
the purpose of ornamenting churches on the plain), render 
it an object of the highest curiosity and interest. 

The interior of this ancient building is also extremely 
striking ; the inner court-yard and great Gothic Hall, in- 
vested with the sombre mystery of partial decay, the eight 
rooms above, the numerous windows, all would repay a 
long visit from any one to whom the details of such 
architecture are desiderata. 

Confining myself to making drawings of the general 
appearance of this celebrated castle, I had hardly time to 
complete two careful sketches of it, when the day was so 
far advanced that my guardiano recommended a speedy re- 



CASTEL DEL MONTE 1 65 

turn, and by the time I had overcome the five hours of 
stony " murgie " I confess to having thought that any thing 
less interesting than Castel del Monte v\^ould hardly have 
compensated for the day's labour. I reached Minervino at 

one hour of the night, and found P just arrived from 

his giro to Canosa. 

While riding over the Murgie, slowly pacing over those 
stony hills, my guide indulged me vv^ith a legend of the old 
castle, v\^hich is worth recording, be it authentic or im- 
aginary. The Emperor Frederick II., having resolved to 
build the magnificent residence on the site it now occupies, 
employed one of the first architects of the day to erect it ; 
and during its progress despatched one of his courtiers to 
inspect the work, and to bring him a report of its character 
and appearance. The courtier set out; but on passing 
through Melfi, halted to rest at the house of a friend, where 
he became enamoured of a beautiful damesel, whose eyes 
caused him to forget Castel del Monte and his sovereign, 
and induced him to linger in the Norman city until a mes- 
senger arrived there charged by the Emperor to bring him 
immediately to the Court, then at Naples. At that period 
it was by no means probable that Barbarossa, engaged in 
different warlike schemes, would ever have leisure to visit 
his new castle, and the courtier, fearful of delay, resolved to 
hurry into the presence and risk a description of the build- 
ing which he had not seen, rather than confess his neglect 
of duty. Accordingly he denounced the commencement 
of the Castel del Monte as a total failure, both as to beauty 
and utility, and the architect as an impostor; on hearing 



1 66 CASTEL DEL MONTE 

which the Emperor sent immediately to the unfortunate 
builder, the messenger carrying an order for his disgrace, 
and a requisition for his instant appearance in the capital. 
" Suffer me to take leave of my wife and children," said the 
despairing architect, and shutting himself in one of the 
upper rooms, he forthwith destroyed his whole family and 
himself, rather than fall into the hands of a monarch notori- 
ous for his severity. 

The tidings of this event was, however, brought to the 
Emperor's ears, and with characteristic impetuosity, he set 
off for Apulia directly, taking with him the first courtier- 
messenger, doubtless sufficiently ill at ease, from antici- 
pations of the results about to follow his duplicity. What 
was Barbarossa's indignation at beholding one of the most 
beautiful buildings doomed, through the falsehood of his 
messenger, to remain incomplete, and polluted by the blood 
of his most skilful subject, and that of his innocent family ! 

Foaming with rage, he dragged the offender by the hair 
of his head to the top of the highest tower, and with his own 
hands threw him down as a sacrifice to the memory of the 
architect and his family, so cruelly and wantonly destroyed. 

September 2^. — Having risen before sunrise, the energetic 
and practical Don Vincenzino gave us coffee by the aid of 
a spirit lamp, and we passed some hours in drawing the 
town of Minervino, the sparkling lights and delicate grey 
tints of whose buildings blended charmingly with the vast 
pale rosy plains of Apulia in the far distance. At nine we 
returned to a substantial dejeuner^ and at half-past ten took 
leave of our thoroughly hospitable and good-natured host. 



CASTEL DEL MONTE 

HENRY SWINBURNE 

A MOST disagreeable stony road brought us to Ruvo, 
through a vine country. The pomegranate hedges 
in flower, and the holme oak loaded with kermes, enlivened 
the prospect, which otherwise would have been very dull. 
. . . I here quitted the Roman way, and rode fifteen miles 
westward to Castel del Monte. The country I traversed 
is open, uneven and dry. The castle is a landmark, and 
stands on the brow of a very high hill, the extremity of a 
ridge that branches out from the Apennine. The ascent to 
it is near half a mile long, and very steep; the view from 
its terrace most extensive. A vast reach of sea and plain on 
one side, and mountains on the other; not a city in the 
province but is distinguishable ; yet the barrenness of the 
foreground takes off a great deal of the beauty of the picture. 
The building is octangular, in a plain solid style; the walls 
are raised with reddish and white stones, ten feet six inches 
thick; the great gate is of marble, cut into very intricate 
ornaments, after the manner of the Arabians; on the 
balustrade of the steps lie two enormous lions of marble, 
their bushy manes nicely, though barbarously, expressed; 
the court, which is in the centre of the edifice, contains an 
octangular marble bason of a surprising diameter. To 
carry it to the summit of such a hill must have cost an 



1 68 CASTLE DEL MONTE 

infinite deal of labour. Two hundred steps lead up to the 
top of the castle, which consists of two stories. In each 
of them are fifteen saloons of great dimensions, cased 
throughout with various and valuable marbles ; the ceilings 
are supported by triple clustered columns of a single block 
of white marble, the capitals extremely simple. Various 
have been the opinions concerning the founder of this 
castle ', but the best grounded ascribe it to Frederick of 
Swabia. I dined and spent the hot hours with great com- 
fort under the porch, which commands a noble view of the 
Adriatic. 

In the evening I descended the mountain, and rode nine 
miles to Andria, a large feudal city, east of the Roman 
road. 



THE GENERALIFE 

THEOPHILE GAUTIER 

THE GENERALIFE is situated not far from the Al- 
hambra on a spur of the same mountain. You get 
to it by a kind of dug out road that traverses the ravine of 
Los Molinos, which is bordered all the way with fig-trees 
of enormous glistening leaves, green oaks, pistachio-trees, 
laurels, and rock roses of a remarkably exuberant vegeta- 
tion. The ground on which you walk is composed of yel- 
low sand oozing with water, wonderful in its fecundity. 
Nothing is more delightful than to follow this road, which 
has the appearance of running through a virgin forest of 
America, so thickly is it choked with foliage and flowers, 
and so great is the overwhelming scent of the aromatic 
plants you inhale there. Vines spring through the cracks 
of the broken walls, and hang from all their branches fan- 
tastic tendrils and leaves resembling the tracery of Arabian 
ornaments ; the aloe opens its fan of bluish blades and the 
orange trees twist their knotty trunks and cling with fang- 
like roots to the rents in the steep slopes. Everything flour- 
ishes and blooms in a tangled disorder full of the most 
charming effects of chance. A straying branch of jasmin 
mingles its white stars with the scarlet flowers of the pome- 
granate, and a laurel leaps from one side of the road to the 
other to embrace a cactus, notwithstanding its thorns. 



lyo 



THE GENERALIFE 



Nature, left to herself, seems to take pride in her coquetry, 
and wishes to show how far she surpasses even the most 
exquisite and finished art. 

After a quarter of an hour's walk, you come to the Gen- 
eralife, which is, in some sense, nothing but the casa de 
campo^ the country house, of the Alhambra. The exterior, 
like that of all oriental buildings, is very simple : it consists 
of large walls without windows and surmounted by a ter- 
race with a gallery divided into arcades, the whole being 
crowned with a little modern belvedere. Of the Generalife 
nothing now remains but some arcades and some large 
panels of arabesques, unfortunately plastered over with 
layers of whitewash that have been applied again and again 
with all the obstinacy of a dispiriting cleanliness. Little by 
little the delicate sculptures and the marvellous guilloches of 
this fairy-like architecture have been obliterated, filled up, 
and engulfed. What is at present nothing more than a 
faintly-vermiculated wall, was formerly open lace-work as 
fine as those ivory leaves which the patience of the Chinese 
carves for fans. The brush of the whitewasher has caused 
more chefs d'oeuvre to disappear than the scythe of Time, if 
I may be allowed to use that superannuated, mythological 
expression. In a fairly well preserved hall, you notice a 
series of smoky portraits of the kings of Spain, but these 
have only a chronological value. 

The real charm of the Generalife consists in its gardens 
and waters. A canal paved with marble runs through the 
whole length of the enclosure, and rolls its abundant and 
rapid waves under a series of leafy arches, formed by yews 



THE GENERALIFE 



171 



curiously bent and clipped. Orange-trees and cypresses are 
planted on each border ; it was at the foot of one of these 
cypresses, of a prodigious size, and which dates from the 
time of the Moors, that the favourite of Boabdil, if we 
may believe the legend, often proved that bolts and grilles 
are but slight protectors of the virtue of sultanas. One 
thing, at least, is certain, — that the yew is very large and 
very old. 

The perspective is terminated by a porticoed gallery, or- 
namented with fountains and marble columns, like the 
Patio of Myrtles in the Alhambra. The canal turns sharply 
and you then enter other enclosures ornamented with water- 
works and whose walls still retain traces of the frescoes of 
the Sixteenth Century representing rustic architecture and 
distant views. In the centre of one of these basins of 
water, a gigantic oleander of a singular brilliancy and incom- 
parable beauty rises like an immense basket of flowers. 
At the time that I saw it, it seemed like an explosion of 
blossoms, or a bouquet of vegetable fireworks ; its ruddy 
hue was so splendid and vigorous, — indeed almost clam- 
orous, if one may apply that word to colours, — as to dim 
the hue of the most vermilion rose. Its lovely flowers 
leaped with all the ardour of desire towards the pure light 
of the sky ; and its noble leaves, shaped expressly by nature 
for a crown of glory and sprinkled by the spray of the foun- 
tain, sparkled in the sunshine like emeralds. Never did 
anything inspire me with a higher sentiment of the beauti- 
ful than this rose-bay of the Generalife. 

The water is brought to the gardens down a very steep 



172 



THE GENERALIFE 



inclined plane, bordered by little walls, forming on each 
side a kind of parapet, supporting canals hollowed out and 
lined with large tiles through which the water runs beneath 
the open sky with the gayest and liveliest chatter in the 
world. At yard intervals, well-supplied water-jets burst 
forth from the centre of little basins and shoot their crystal 
aigrettes into the thick foliage of the groves of laurels 
whose branches interlace above them. The mountain 
gushes with water on every side ; at each step a spring 
starts out, and you continually hear at your side the mur- 
muring of some rivulet turned from its course, and going to 
supply a fountain, or to carry refreshment to the foot of 
some tree. The Arabs have carried the art of irrigation to 
the highest degree ; their hydraulic-works attest the most 
advanced state of civilization ; these works still exist to- 
day, and it is to them that Grenada owes the reputation it 
has of being the Paradise of Spain, and of enjoying eternal 
spring in an African climate. An arm of the Darro has 
been turned out of its course by the Arabs and carried for 
more than two leagues along the hill of the Alhambra. 

From the Belvedere of the Generalife you can clearly see 
the outline of the Alhambra with its enclosure of reddish, 
half-ruined towers, and its pieces of wall which rise and 
fall with the undulations of the mountain. The Palace of 
Charles V., which is not visible from the side of the city, 
stands out with its square and heavy mass, gilded with a pale 
reflection of sunlight, upon the damask-like slopes of the 
Sierra Nevada, whose white ridges are strongly notched 
against the sky. The bell-tower of Saint-Marie lifts its 



THE GENERALIFE 1 73 

Christian silhouette above the Moorish battlements. A 
few cypresses thrust their sorrowful leaves through the 
crevices in the walls, in the midst of all this light and azure 
sky, like a melancholy thought at a joyous festival. The 
slopes of the hill running down towards the Darro and the 
ravine of Los Molinos disappear beneath an ocean of ver- 
dure. It is one of the most beautiful views that can be 
imagined. 

On the other side, as if to form a contrast with so much 
verdure, there rises an uncultivated, scorched, tawny moun- 
tain with patches of ocre and burnt Sienna which is called 
La Silla del Moro, on account of some ruins of buildings 
upon its summit. It was from here that King Boabdil used 
to view the Arabian horsemen jousting in the Vega with 
Christian knights. The memory of the Moors is still vivid 
in Grenada. You would think that they left the city only 
yesterday, and, if we should judge of them by their traces, 
it is a pity that they ever left it at all. What southern 
Spain requires is African civilization and not the civiliza- 
tion of Europe, which is not in sympathy with the heat of 
the climate, or the passions it inspires. 



CHATEAU DE CHENONCEAUX 

JULES LOISELEUR 

UNLIKE so many other chateaux of Blaissons and 
Touraine, Chenonceaux awakens only gay and 
happy thoughts. Chambord possesses the calm gravity of 
a monastery ; Ambroise is a prison ; Blois bears upon its 
face its blot of blood. All the other retreats of the royal 
Valois and all the chateaux of their courtiers, grouped in 
such number upon the banks of the Cher, the Vienne, and 
the Loire — Loches, Chinon, Plessis-lez-Tours, Luynes, 
Saumur, Brissac, — speak of treachery, perfidy, revenge, 
conspiracy and all the wricked tendencies of human nature. 
Chenonceaux alone recalls only memories of youth, ele- 
gance, poetry, and love. There is no blood upon its stones. 
The gentlest and the most charming figures of the Sixteenth 
and Seventeenth Century, Diane de Poitiers, Mary Stuart, 
Gabrielle and Fran^oise de'Mercoeur come in succession to 
animate that smiling nature and to reflect their fair faces in 
its clear waters. Catherine de Medicis, in passing through 
this beautiful place, here dropped a little of her cold and 
imperious gravity : she has left only the memory of that 
orgy-like and splendid banquet that cost more than a million 
of our money, and where Madame de Sauve, half naked, 
was the stewardess. 



CHATEAU DE CHENONCEAUX 



175 



The widow of Henri III., promenading ifi her long robes 
of mourning, lent it another charm, — that of melancholy ; 
and when Rousseau, at last raised that voice there which 
could gather together tempests, it was not philosophy, 
nor social conditions, nor the rights of man of which he 
spoke : it was still love and poetry. 

Chenonceaux, by means of its position, its architec- 
ture, and its history, is so near the other chateaux on 
the banks of the Loire, neighbouring and contemporary 
pearls, that it is impossible to detach it from that jewel-case. 
However, it is not on the Loire, the river of severe hori- 
zons and majestic wearisomeness ; it is on a less proud and 
more smiling little river, the Cher, three leagues from Am- 
boise, that this palace of Armida was built. It rears itself 
upon the bosom of this charming stream which stops here 
in a lazy curve as if to linger and bathe its walls, delight- 
ing in reflecting those graceful towers and enchanted 
gardens in its liquid depths. No other palace that I know 
rises thus, like Venus from the breast of the waves, with- 
out any link to the earth save a single bridge at one of its 
extremities. It was a woman who had this charming idea 
that gives to the chateau a somewhat fairy-like and super- 
natural effect : for Chenonceaux is not, as is too often be- 
lieved, the work of Thomas Bohier, but of his wife, who 
consecrated to this work, conceived in love, the treasures 
that her husband sent her from Italy. There are two other 
women, Diane de Poitiers and Catherine de'Medici who 
completed while enlarging the thought of Catherine 
Bri^onnet. It seems that women only could possess a suf- 



176 chAteau de chenonceaux 

ficiently light hand to touch such a delicate work and to 
design the plan. 

It was at the north-east corner of the court of honour, 
between the stream and the gardener's house, that MM. 
Sechan and Deplechein -placed themselves to paint the pic- 
ture used for the scenery in the second act of Les Hugue- 
nots. This choice proved a familiar general view. No 
other spot shows Chenonceaux in a more complete and 
picturesque aspect. Seen from this point, the chateau pre- 
sents itself obliquely, which enables the eye to embrace at 
the same time the principal facade and the entire construc- 
tion of the western side, from the apsis of the chapel to the 
end of the gallery that crosses the Cher, 

The foreground of the picture is charming. 

At the right and in the corner, the court of honour pre- 
cedes its royal avenue of plantains and ends with its stone 
balustrades. Behind this balustrade, stands the beautiful 
tower with a roof like a pepper box, which is used as the 
porter's lodge, and which, built upon the firm ground, seems 
like a timid sister watching her big sisters bathing their feet 
in the river without daring to follow them. 

In the middle distance, is the bridge with its three un- 
equal arches and its heavy buttresses alongside of their half 
moons in brackets. Beyond the bridge, is the principal 
facade, flanked with two corbelled towers presenting under 
a flying buttress its large caryatides, its two balconies in 
hemicycle, and three charming dormer windows that crown 
it. Farther along in the centre of the picture, is the apsis 
of the chapel with its long lancets flaming in the sun, sup- 



CHATEAU DE CHENONCEAUX 



77 



ported, like the principal front, by those heavy courses of 
stone in which are the kitchen offices of the castle ; then 
comes the beautiful eastern front that surmounts the great 
arch and occupies the centre of the stream which, as well 
as the whole corresponding western front, must certainly be 
attributed to Diane de Poitiers, for its windows, its archi- 
trave and all the details of its entablature bear the mark of 
the reign of Henri 11. 

Finally, to the left of the picture, are the five arches of the 
bridge built for Diane to connect the left bank of the Cher 
with the great pavilion and, above this bridge, the two 
stages of galleries constructed by Androuet du Cerceau for 
Catherine de'Medici, with their little turrets with arched 
windows corresponding to the peers, and forming so many 
terraces for the second gallery. 

All this, with the river for the foreground and with the 
large trees on both banks for a frame, and the trees of the 
gardens for perspective, and the tops, formerly gilded, of the 
gallery and the large pavilion, the ornamented chimneys, the 
peaked roofs and the vanes of the turrets, peaks, dormer 
windows, chimneys and weather-vanes, vaporously melting 
into the beautiful sky of Touraine ; all this, I say, forms a 
complete whole that would ravish any painter and one that 
in truth is worthy of the honour paid to it by M. Scribe at 
the Opera. No false tone and no ungraceful nor violent 
line disturbs the harmony of this beautiful picture. Minds 
that love parallelism and symmetry may regret undoubtedly 
that the enthusiasm of political life did not permit Catherine 
de'Medici to complete that beautiful conception and build 



178 chAteau de chenonceaux 

upon the left bank of the Cher a large pavilion similar to 
that on the right bank : the gallery, which does not come 
to-day any further than the steep bank of the river, vv^ould 
then have occupied the centre of the building. But, per- 
haps, there is in this incompleteness of Chenonceaux, which 
permits everybody to finish it in dreams according to his 
pleasure, something that saves it from banality ; perhaps it 
gains, instead of losing, by exciting that admiration mingled 
with regrets and also with criticism which the greater num- 
ber of men, by an inherent weakness of nature, prefer to the 
enthusiasm without reservation that is the right of a perfect 
work. 



DUBLIN CASTLE 

LADY WILDE 

FEW amongst us who tread the Dublin of the present 
in all its beauty, think of the Dublin of the past in 
all its contrasted insignificance. True, the eternal features 
are the same ; the landscape setting of the city is coeval 
with creation. Tyrian, Dane, and Norman have looked as 
we look, and with hearts as responsive to Nature's loveli- 
ness, upon the emerald plains, the winding rivers, the hills 
draperied in violet and gold, the mountain gorges, thunder- 
riven, half veiled by the foam of the waterfall, and the eter- 
nal ocean encircling all ; scenes where God said a city 
should arise, and the mountain and the ocean are still, as of 
old, the magnificent heritage of beauty conferred on our 
metropolis. 

But the early races, whether from the southern sea or 
northern plain, did little to aid the beauty of nature with 
the products of human intellect. Dublin, under the Dan- 
ish rule, consisted only of a fortress, a church, and one 
rude street. Under the rule of the Normans, those great 
civilizers of the western world, those grand energetic or- 
ganizers, temple and tower builders, it rose gradually into a 
beautiful capital, the chief city of Ireland, the second city 
of the empire. At first the rudimental metropolis gathered 
round the castle, as nebulas round a central sun, and from 



l8o DUBLIN CASTLE 

this point it radiated westward and southward ; the O'Briens 
on the south, the O'Connors on the west, the O'Neils on 
the north, perpetually hovering on the borders, but never 
able to regain the city, never able to dislodge the brave 
Norman garrison who had planted their banners on the 
castle walls. In that castle, during the seven hundred years 
of its existence, no Irishman of the old race has ever held 
rule for a single hour. 

And what a history it has of tragedies and splendours ; 
crowned and discrowned monarchs flit across the scene, and 
tragic destinies, likewise, may be recorded of many a viceroy ! 
Piers Gravestone, Lord Lieutenant of King Edward, mur- 
dered; Roger Mortimer — "The Gentle Mortimer" — 
hanged at Tyburn ; the Lord Deputy of King Richard II. 
murdered by the O'Briens; whereupon the King came over 
to avenge his death, just a year before he himself was so 
ruthlessly murdered at Pomfret Castle. Two viceroys died 
of the plague; how many more were plagued to death, 
history leaves unrecorded; one was beheaded at Drogheda; 
three were beheaded on Tower Hill. Amongst the names 
of illustrious Dublin rulers may be found those of Prince 
John, the boy Deputy of thirteen; Prince Lionel, son of 
Edward III., who claimed Clare in right of his wife, and 
assumed the title of Clarence from having conquered it 
from the O'Briens. 

The great Oliver Cromwell was the Lord-Lieutenant of 
the Parliament, and he in turn appointed his son Henry to 
succeed him. Dire are the memories connected with 
Cromwell's reign here, both to his own party and to Ireland. 



DUBLIN CASTLE l8l 

Ireton died of the plague after the siege of Limericic ; Gen- 
eral Jones died of the plague after the surrender of Dun- 
garvon ; a thousand of Cromwell's men died of the plague 
before Waterford. The climate, in its effect upon English 
constitutions, seems to be the great Nemesis of Ireland's 
wrongs. 

Strange scenes, dark, secret, and cruel, have been enacted 
in that gloomy pile. No one has told the full story yet. 
It will be a RatclifFe romance of dungeons and treacheries, 
of swift death or slow murder. God and St. Mary were 
invoked in vain for the luckless Irish prince or chieftain 
that was caught in that Norman stronghold ; but that was 
in the old time — long, long ago. Now the castle courts 
are crowded only with loyal and courtly crowds, gathered 
to pay homage to the illustrious successor of a hundred 
viceroys. 

The strangest scene, perhaps, in the annals of vice- 
royalty, was when Thomas Fitzgerald (Silken Thomas), 
son of the Earl of Kildare, and Lord-Lieutenant in his 
father's absence, took up arms for Irish independence. He 
rode through the city with seven score horsemen, in shirts of 
mail and silken fringe on their head-pieces (hence the name 
Silken Thomas), to St. Mary's Abbey, and there entering 
the council chamber, he flung down the sword of state upon 
the table, and bade defiance to the king and his ministers ; 
then hastening to raise an army, he laid siege to Dublin 
Castle, but with no success. Silken Thomas and five 
uncles were sent to London, and there executed ; and six- 
teen Fitzgeralds were hanged and quartered at Dublin. By 



l82 DUBLIN CASTLE 

a singular fatality, no plot laid against Dublin Castle ever 
succeeded ; though to obtain possession of this foreign 
fortress was the paramount wish of all Irish rebel leaders. 
This was the object with Lord Maguire and his papists, 
with Lord Edward Fitzgerald and his republicans, with 
Emmet and his enthusiasts, with Smith O'Brien and his 
nationalists — yet they all failed. Once only, during seven 
centuries, the green flag waved over Dublin Castle, with 
the motto — " Now or Never ! Now and for Ever ! " It 
was when Tyrconnel held it for King James. 

In the ancient stormy times of Norman rule, the nobility 
naturally gathered round the Castle. Skinner's Row was 
the "May Fair" of mediaeval Dublin, Hoey's Court, Castle 
Street, Cook Street, Fish amble Street, Bridge Street, Wer- 
burgh Street, High Street, Golden Lane, Back Lane, etc., 
were the fashionable localities inhabited by lords and 
bishops, chancellors and judges ; and Thomas Street was 
the grand prado where viceregal pomp and Norman pride 
were oftenest exhibited. 



SANS SOUCI AND OTHER PRUSSIAN PALACES 

WILLIAM HOWITT 

BERLIN has its public gardens, and its popular music 
and dances, as well as any other German city ; but 
they who do not care to visit these will find pleasure in 
walking as far as the Kreutzberg, a little eminence, a 
novelty here, at a little distance from the city, on which is 
erected a Gothic cross or monument of metal, in memory 
of those who died in the war; and figures of the chief 
leaders in it occupy niches, and the names of all the great 
battles in which the Prussians were engaged, are exhibited 
on the diff^erent sides. Charlottenburg, a few miles from 
Berlin, is also not only a charming palace in extensive and 
pleasant gardens, but of great interest from the reposing 
statue of the amiable Queen Louise, by Rauch, which is in 
a little temple in the garden. 

But Potsdam is the great paradise of this neighbourhood, 
as we may be allowed to call it, for though nearly twenty 
English miles distant, a railway conveys you there in forty 
minutes. Here the scene is indeed changed ! Here, in- 
stead of sand and monotony, you have hills, water, woods, 
every thing which is attractive in nature. What a splendid 
situation were this for a capital ! The city on the plain, 
backed by these beautiful hills, with every possible variety 
of site for villas and pleasure gardens. What woods and 



184 SANS SOUCI AND OTHER PRUSSIAN PALACES 

hills, and the beautiful river Havell spreading itself broad 
and winding, like a succession of fine lakes ! Why was not 
Berlin placed where Potsdam is ? Possibly the Havell, 
broad as it looks, may not be so navigable as the Sprey, and 
there may lie the secret, or what a capital would it be here ! 
Frederick the Great, however, duly appreciated the 
beauty of this neighbourhood. Here he delighted to retire. 
Steam has now converted Potsdam into a suburb of Berlin, 
and pours on all holidays its thousands into it, without 
which Potsdam were a retirement and a solitude still, for 
grass grows in its streets. But who cares for Potsdam 
itself, as it lies in its hollow, with its great old palace, and 
great old public buildings and barracks, and avenues of great 
trees, except that its old church contains the tomb of 
Frederick the Great, on which Napoleon heaped the incense 
of his praise, and from which he stole the old warrior's 
sword. But the hills on the Havell, and the views of the 
Havell from them, the rich meadows, the wild forest scenes 
— these are what justify Frederick's fondness for this spot, 
and who can enough enjoy them ? That Frederick en- 
joyed them, the palaces which he has scattered through 
them with an extraordinary prodigality, sufficiently testify : 
the Palace in Potsdam, the Palace of Sans Souci, the Marble 
Palace, the New Palaces. That the present race enjoy 
them, various lovely villas, as the Charlottenhof, Griinecke, 
and others shew. That the last king enjoyed them, the 
Pfauen-Insel is a charming proof. If any one wishes to find 
the lost fairy-land, he must steer his course along the Havell, 
through a wilderness of pine woods to the Pfauen-Insel, 



SANS SOUCI AND OTHER PRUSSIAN PALACES 185 

and there he will acknowledge that he has discovered it. 
Around amid hills shaggy with forests the Havell pours its 
deep and dark waters like an inland sea. The world is 
shut out by the bosky shores and deep pine woods of un- 
known regions, and in the embracing floods lies the most 
delicious region which a poet's fancy could conjure up, or 
which nature and art, in mutual labour, can construct from 
the ordinary materials of the earth. Shores of softest 
green, most ravishing lawns, flowers of superbest dyes and 
in gorgeous masses, trees of stateliest growth and graceful- 
lest beauty of pendant boughs, invite you ever to scenes 
where you may wander for hours, and every few moments 
encounter some new surprise. Here feudal towers rise 
above the flood, with heraldic banners flapping over the 
battlements ; here stately barge and light shallop lie anchored 
in some lonely creek ; here slope sunny uplands under 
scattered oaks, where the shepherd watches his flock. 
Here you come upon a noble conservatory, beautiful with 
the palms and dates and glorious blossoms of tropical re- 
gions, and aromatic with their odours. If you would have 
any illusion to persuade you, beyond the charms of nature 
and of summer, that you are in a region of enchantment, 
you have it. You hear the roar of the lion, the cry of the 
jackal, and the scream of birds unknown in these climates. 
You imagine that some scene in Tasso or Ariosto is about 
to be repeated, and find actually wild beasts of all sorts in 
different dens and cages in various parts of the island. 
Such were the amusements of a king here, after he had 
helped to bind the great wild beast of the age on the rocks 



1 86 SANS SOUCI AND OTHER PRUSSIAN PALACES 

of St. Helena; and a more enchanting scene for a day's 
excursion he could not have left for the pleasure of his 
subjects. 

Amongst the numerous royal palaces we must say a good 
word for the New Palace, as it is called, although it has 
been often and much abused. If not in the purest taste, 
it still possesses a certain grandeur in its enormous extent, 
and prodigality of colonnades, porticoes, and statues con- 
nected with it. It lies low, in the meadow below Potsdam, 
but has a fine solitude of woods and quaint gardens about 
it. It is itself a good and cheerful house, and contains 
many paintings of much merit and beauty. It has also a 
theatre, in which have recently been represented, before the 
court, some of the dramatic pieces of Tieck. If this 
palace were inhabited by the king, with a full and gay 
court, it would, with the necessary life and bustle about it, 
produce far from a despicable impression. 

Then there is, in the wood near, that little temple con- 
taining the second and most beautiful reposing figure of the 
late Queen by Rauch. We had heard this effigy much 
praised for its beauty; but the beauty is that of mind and 
heart. Representatives of far higher physical beauty we 
have often seen. The somewhat high cheek bones, the 
shape of the nose, and the general contour indeed of the 
countenance, depart from the pure ideal of personal beauty, 
but a still higher beauty distinguishes this charming statue. 
It is that perfect sweetness of disposition ; that spirit bap- 
tized in heavenly affection ; that wife-like devotion ; that high 
and dauntless, and holy patriotism, dwelling in a meek and 



SANS SOUCI AND OTHER PRUSSIAN PALACES 187 

lowly nature, which made this excellent queen adored by 
the people when alive, and which glorify her image here in 
the cold stone. 

Not far from this palace is Charlottenhof, the beautiful 
little villa in the Herculaneum style built by the present 
king, when Crown-Prince, for himself. It is fitted up with 
a simplicity befitting a private gentleman, but with a 
classical purity of taste which makes all beautiful. But 
Sans Souci is the great attraction of the neighbourhood. It 
is a mere villa perched on a hill just above Potsdam, and 
surrounded by the most lovely views over the meadows and 
wild woody banks of the Havell. The hill on which it 
stands is crowned with gardens in successive terraces. As 
you approach through the fine meadows and beneath a noble 
avenue of trees, broad flights of steps, ascending from ter- 
race to terrace up to the house, and the lower part of the 
house half concealed from view by the swell of the hill, 
give a very singular appearance to the whole. It seems as 
if the house was surrounded by a piazza, and that those 
flights of steps ascended to the top, instead of to the bottom 
of the building. As we ascended these long flights of steps, 
successive terraces of the garden shewed themselves right 
and left, with their vines and fig-trees loaded with fruit, and 
with quantities of golden gourds, each perfectly round, 
large enough to fill a wheelbarrow, lying about ; and flowers, 
in richest autumnal hues, glowed around. Arrived on the 
summit, nothing can be conceived more delicious. The 
fine views over the lovely country ; the gardens all below 
you ; the space before the palace full of beds of gayest 



1 88 SANS SOUCI AND OTHER PRUSSIAN PALACES 

flowers, and orange trees standing everywhere in blossom, 
diffusing through the whole air their delicious aroma. Trees 
of splendid growth added their beauty to the spot ; the mill 
of the sturdy old miller shewing itself amongst them ; and 
from a circular colonnade, on the other side of the house, 
a brownish, wildish, burnt-up sort of a country, with wind- 
mills, and an artificial ruin of a Grecian temple on a woody 
hill opposite, constructed with better effect than such things 
generally are, presented a fit landscape for an old painter. 

Every part of this place abounds with recollections of 
the victorious old Fritz. At each end of the garden, in a 
green plot, are the graves of his horse and dogs, eleven in 
number, he having ordered himself to be laid there to com- 
plete the dozen 5 an order not complied with. In the house 
remain many memorials of him ; 'mongst them the clock, 
which stopped exactly as he died, and his library, in which 
his own works are conspicuous. One volume of his poems 
stood open at this curious passage : 

Mais, quels sont ces cries d' Alegresse ! 

Quels Chants ! Quelles acclamations ! 

Les Fran^ais plein de son yvresse 

Semble vainqueur des Nations. 

II 1' est ; et voila qui s' avance 

La P.ompe du jeune Louis : 

L' Anglais a perdu sa Balance, 

L'Autricien, son insolence, 

Et la Balave encore surpris 

En grondant benit La Clemence 

De ce Heros, dont I' indulgence 

The wall of the room occupied here by Voltaire is 



SANS SOUCI AND OTHER PRUSSIAN PALACES 189 

painted all over monkeys and parrots. They tell you that 
Frederick, being desirous to have a portrait of the ugly old 
Frenchman, to which he would not consent, the king em- 
ployed a painter to observe him by stealth from the next 
room whenever the door was opened, which Voltaire becom- 
ing aware of, clapped a screen before his table ; and Fred- 
erick to mortify him, caused the whole of the walls of his 
room, the first opportunity, to be thus adorned with monkeys 
and parrots, as indicative of his person and loquacity. Poor 
Frederick paid dearly in his lifetime, in annoyance, for his 
propensity to French philosophy ; and his country paid still 
more so for it after his death. 



WHITEHALL PALACE 

LEIGH HUNT 

THE whole district containing all that collection of 
streets and houses, which extends from Scotland 
Yard to Parliament Street, and from the river side, with its 
wharfs, to St. James's Park, and which is still known by the 
general appellation of Whitehall, was formerly occupied by 
a sumptuous palace and its appurtenances, the only relics of 
which, perhaps the noblest specimen, is the beautiful edifice 
built by Inigo Jones, and retaining its old name of the 
Banqueting-House. 

As this palace was the abode of a series of English 
sovereigns, beginning with Henry the Eighth, who took it 
from Wolsey, and terminating with James the Second, on 
whose downfall it was destroyed by fire, we are now in the 
very thick of the air of royalty. 

The site of Whitehall was originally occupied by a man- 
sion built by Hubert de Burgh, Earl of Kent and Chief 
Justice of England in the reign of Henry the Third, one 
of the ancestors of the present Marquess of Clanricarde. 
De Burgh bequeathed it to the brotherhood of the Black 
Friars, near "Oldborne," in whose church he was buried ; 
the Brotherhood sold it to Walter Gray, Archbishop of 
York, who left it to his successors in that see as the arch- 
iepiscopal residence, which procured it the name of 



WHITEHALL PALACE 



191 



York Place ; and under that name, two centuries and a half 
afterwards, it became celebrated for the pomp and splendour 
of the " full-blown " priest, Wolsey, the magnificent 
butcher's son. Wolsey, on highly probable evidence, is 
thought to have so improved and enlarged the mansion of 
his predecessors, as to have in a manner rebuilt it, and given 
it its first royalty of aspect : but, as we shall see by and by, 
it was not called Whitehall, nor occupied anything like the 
space it did afterwards, till its seizure by the Cardinal's 
master. 

On the Cardinal's downfall, Henry seized his house and 
goods, and converted York Place into a royal residence, 
under the title of Westminster Place, then, for the first 
time, called also Whitehall. 

" It is not impossible," says Mr. Brayley (Londiniana 
Vol. II., p. 27), " that the Whitehall, properly so called, was 
erected by Wolsey, and obtained its name from the newness 
and freshness of its appearance, when compared with the 
ancient buildings of York Place. Shakespeare in his play 
of King Henry VIII. ^ makes one of the interlocutors say, 
in describing the coronation of Queen Anne Boleyn : — 

' So she parted. 
And with the same full state paced back again 
To York Place, where the feast is held.' 

To this is replied — 

* Sir, you 
Must no more call it York Place — that is past. 
For since the Cardinal fell, that title's lost. 
'Tis now the King's, and called Whitehall.' " 

It was in Whitehall that Henry made his ill-assorted 






192 WHITEHALL PALACE 

marriage with Anne Boleyn ; Dr. Lingard says in a 
"garret"; Stowe says in the royal " closet." It is likely 
enough that the ceremony was hurried and sudden ; — a fit 
of will, perhaps, during his wine ; and if the closet was not 
ready, the garret was. The clergyman who officiated was 
shortly afterwards made a bishop. 

Henry died in Whitehall ; so fat, that he was lifted in 
and out his chamber and sitting-room by means of machinery. 

" He was " somewhat gross, or, as we tearme it, bourlie," 
says time-serving Holinshed. 

He laboured under the burden of an extreme fit and un- 
wieldy body," says noble Herbert of Cherbury. 

It was under this Prince (as already noticed) that the 
palace of the Archbishop of York first became the " King's 
Palace at Westminster," and expanded into that mass of 
houses which stretched to St. James's Park. He built a 
gate-house which stood across what is now the open street, 
and a gallery connecting the two places, and overlooking a 
tilt-yard ; and on the park-side he built a cockpit, a tennis- 
court, and alleys for bowling ; for although he put women 
to death, he was fond of manly sports. He was also a 
patron of the fine arts, and gave an annuity and rooms in 
the palace to the celebrated Holbein, who is said to have 
designed the gate, as well as decorated the interior. 

The reader is to bear in mind that the street in front of 
the modern Banqueting-House was always open, as it is 
now, from Charing Cross to King Street, narrowing opposite 
to the south end of the Banqueting-House, at which point 
the gate looked up it towards the Cross. Just opposite the 



WHITEHALL PALACE 1 93 

Banqueting-House on the site of the present Horse-Guards, 
was the Tilt-yard. The whole mass of houses and gardens 
on the river side comprised the royal residence. Down 
this open street, then, just as people walk now, we may 
picture to ourselves Henry coming with his regal pomp, 
and Wolsey with his priestly ; Sir Thomas More strolling 
thoughtfully, perhaps talking with quiet-faced Erasmus; 
Holbein, looking about him with an artist's eyes ; Surrey 
coming gallantly in his cloak and feather, as Holbein has 
painted him ; and a succession of Henry's wives, with their 
flitting groups on horseback or under canopy ; — handsome, 
stately Catherine of Arragon ; laughing Anne Boleyn ; quiet 
Jane Seymour; gross-bodied but sensible Anne of Cleves; 
demure Catherine Howard, who played such pranks before 
marriage ; and disputatious yet buxom Catherine Parr, who 
survived one tyrant to become the broken-hearted wife of a 
smaller one. Down this road, also came gallant companies 
of knights and squires, to the tilting-yard ; but of them we 
shall have more to say in the time of Elizabeth. 

We see little of Edward the Sixth, and less of Lady Jane 
Grey and Queen Mary, in connection with Whitehall. 
Edward once held the Parliament there, on account of his 
sickly condition ; and he used to hear Latimer preach in 
the Privy Garden (still so called), where a pulpit was 
erected for him on purpose. As there are gardens there 
still to the houses erected on the spot, one may stand by 
the rails, and fancy we hear the voice of the rustical but 
eloquent and honest prelate, rising through the trees. 

It was under Elizabeth that Whitehall shone out in all its 



^1^ 



194 



WHITEHALL PALACE 



romantic splendour. It was no longer the splendour of 
Wolsey alone, nor of Henry alone, or with a great name 
by his side now and then; but of a Queen, surrounded and 
worshipped through a long reign by a galaxy of the brightest 
minds and most chivalrous persons ever assembled in Eng- 
lish history. 

Here she comes, turning the corner from the Strand, un- 
der a canopy of state, leaving the noisier, huzzaing multi- 
tude behind the barriers that mark the precincts of the 
palace, and bending her eyes hither and thither, in acknowl- 
edgment of the kneeling obeisances of the courtiers. Be- 
side her are Cecil and Knolles, and Northampton, and 
Bacon's father ; or, later in life, Leicester, and Burleigh, 
and Sir Philip Sydney, and Greville, and Sir Francis Drake, 
(and Spenser is looking on) ; or, later still, Essex and Ra- 
leigh, and Bacon himself, and Southampton, Shakespeare's 
friend, with Shakespeare among the spectators. We shall 
see her, by and by, at that period, as brought to life to us 
in the description of Hentzner the traveller. At present 
(as we have her at this moment in our eye) she is younger, 
of a large and tall, but well-made figure, with fine eyes, and 
finer hands, which she is fond of displaying. We are too 
apt to think of Elizabeth as thin and elderly, and patched up ; 
but for a good period of her life she was plump and person- 
able, warranting the history of the robust romps of the 
Lord Admiral, Seymour ; and till her latter days (and even 
then, as far as her powers went), we are always to fancy 
her at once spirited and stately of carriage, impulsive (ex- 
cept on occasions of ordinary ceremony), and ready to 



«i 



WHITEHALL PALACE 



195 



manifest her emotions in look and voice, whether as woman 
or Queen ; in a word, a sort of Henry the Eighth corrected 
by a female nature and a better understanding — or perhaps 
an Anne Boleyn, enlarged, and made less feminine by the 
father's grossness. The Protestants have represented her 
as too staid, and the Catholics as too violent and sensual. 
According to the latter, Whitehall was a mere sink of in- 
iquity. It was not likely to be so, for many reasons ; but 
neither, on the other hand, do we take it to have been any- 
thing like the pattern of self-denial which some fond 
writers have supposed. Where there is power, and leisure, 
and luxury, though of the most legitimate kind, and refine- 
ment, though of the most intellectual, self-denial on the 
side of enjoyment is not apt to be the reigning philosophy ; 
nor would it reasonably be looked for in any court, at all 
living in wealth and splendour. 

Imagine the sensations of Elizabeth, when she first set 
down in the palace at Whitehall, after escaping the perils 
of imputed illegitimacy, of confinement for party's sake and 
for religion's, and all the other terrors of her father's reign 
and of Mary's, danger of death itself not excepted. She 
was a young Queen of twenty-five years of age, healthy, 
sprightly, good-looking, with plenty of will, power, and im- 
agination ; and the gallantest spirits of the age were at her feet. 

The Court of James the First was a great falling ofF from 
that of Elizabeth, in point of decency. It was Sir Toby 
keeping house after the death of Olivia; or a fox-hunting 
squire succeeding to the estate of some courtly dame and 
mingling low life with high. 



196 WHITEHALL PALACE 

We have seen court mummeries in the time of Henry 
the Eighth and pageants in that of Elizabeth. In the time 
of James, the masquings of the one, and the gorgeous shows 
of the other, combined to produce the Masque, in its latest 
and best acceptation ; that is, a dramatic exhibition of some 
brief fable or allegory, uniting the most fanciful poetry and 
scenery, and generally heightened with a contrast of hu- 
mour, or an anti-masque. Ben Jonson was their great 
poetical master in the court of James and Inigo Jones 
claimed to be their no less masterly and important setter- 
forth in scene and show. The poet and artist had a quarrel 
upon this issue, and Inigo's memory suffers from divers 
biting libels in the works of his adversary. The noble 
Banqueting-House remains to show that the architect might 
have had some right to dispute pretensions, even with the 
author of the Alchemist and the Sad Shepherd; for it is a piece 
of the very music of his art (if we may so speak) — the har- 
mony of proportion. Within these walls, as we now see 
them, rose, " like a steam of rich distilled perfumes," the 
elegant lines of Ben Jonson, breathing court flowers, — the 
clouds and painted columns of Jones — and the fair faces, 
gorgeous dresses, and dances, of the beauties that dazzled 
the young eyesight of the Miltons and Wallers. Ben's 
burly body would then break out, as it were, after his more 
refined soul, in some burlesque anti-masque, now and then 
not a little coarse •, and the sovereign and the poet most 
probably concluded the night in the same manner, 
though not at the same table in filling their skins with 
wine. 



WHITEHALL PALACE 



197 



The Court of Charles I. was decorum and virtue itself in 
comparison with that of James, Drunkenness disappeared ; 
there were no scandalous favourites ; Buckingham alone re- 
tained his ascendency as the friend and assistant ; and the 
king manifested his notions of the royal dignity by a stately 
reserve. Little remained externally of the old Court but its 
splendour; and to this a new lustre was given by a taste 
for painting and the patronage of Rubens and Vandyke. 
Charles was a great collector of pictures. , He was still 
fonder of poetry than his father, retained Ben Jonson as his 
laureate, encouraged Sandys, and May, and Carew, and 
was a fond reader of Spenser and Shakespeare. It was, 
upon the whole a grave and graceful court, not without an 
undercurrent of intrigue. 

It seems ridiculous to talk of the court of Oliver Crom- 
well, who had so many severe matters to attend to in order 
to keep himself on his throne ; but he had a court, neverthe- 
less ; and however jealously it was watched by the most 
influential of his adherents, it grew more courtly as his 
protectorate advanced. 

But how shall we speak of the court of Charles II. ? of 
that unblushing seminary for the misdirection of young 
ladies, which, occupying the ground now inhabited by all 
which is proper, rendered the mass of buildings by the 
water's side, from Charing Cross to the Parliament, one 
vast — what are we to call it ? — 

** Chi mi dara le voci e le parole 
Convenienti a si nobil soggetto ? " 



198 WHITEHALL PALACE 

Let Mr. Pepys explain. Let Clarendon explain. Let 
all the world explain, who equally reprobate the place and 
its master, and yet somehow are so willing to hear it 
reprobated, that they read endless accounts of it, old and 
new, from the not very bashful expose of the Count de 
Grammont, down to the blushing deprecations of Mrs. 
Jameson. 

The Court of James IL is hardly worth mention. It lasted 
less than four years, and was as dull as himself. The most 
remarkable circumstance attending it was the sight of friars 
and confessors, and the brief restoration of Popery. Waller, 
too, was once seen there ; the fourth court of his visiting. 
There was a poetess also, who appears to have been 
attached by regard as well as office to the Court of James — 
Anne Kingswill, better known by her subsequent title of 
Countess of Winchelsea. The attachment was most prob- 
ably one of feeling only and good nature, for she had no 
bigotry of any sort. Dryden, furthermore, was laureate to 
King James ; and in a fit of politic, perhaps real, regret, 
turned round upon the late court in his famous comparison 
of it with its predecessor. 

James fled from England In December, 1688, and the 
history of Whitehall terminates with its conflagration ten 
years afterwards. 



THE CASTLE OF KRONBORG 

HORACE MARRYAT 

THE walks in the neighbourhood of Elsinore are 
charming, particularly that along the Strandrei, by 
the shore of the Sound — a succession of country houses and 
fishing villages, and well-kept gardens bright with flowers : 
they have a well-to-do prosperous air, as everything has in 
Denmark. An hour's walk brings you to a maisonette 
called Dahlsborg, beyond which you turn to enter the 
forest of Egebaeksvang, a favourite summer drive of the 
Elsinorians. 

A ten minutes' walk, avoiding all dusty roads across the 
common or waste land which runs down to the seashore — 
in England it would have been the paradise of geese, 
cricketers and donkeys, but here it is deserted, except by 
the sharpshooters, who keep up a cross-fire, practising their 
targets from eight o'clock till six of an evening — brings us 
to the Castle of Kronborg. 

The road lies between two dirty stagnant ponds, dignified 
by the appellation of Holger Dansk's Spectacles : if they 
fitted his face, he must have had one eye considerably larger 
than the other. Instead of snoring away his time within 
the dungeons of Kronborg — his beard growing into the 
marble table — he had far better employ his leisure moments 
in cleaning out and sweetening his " brille " ; but he only 



200 THE CASTLE OF KRONBORG 

appears, they say, when Mr. Sorensen (the Danish John 
Bull or Brother Jonathan) really requires his services. 
Effectual drainage and sanitary reforms are sadly behind- 
hand, and looked upon as new-fangled vagaries by the 
inhabitants of the island of Zealand, 

If in your early youth you have devoured the Fabliaux et 
Contes^ King Arthur and the Knights of his Round Table^ and 
other legends of old Romaunce, you will recognize in Holger 
Dansk,^ or rather Augier le Danois, an old and favourite 
acquaintance. Some few years since I brushed him up 
when I visited the ruins of La 'Joyeuse Garde and the classic 
sands of Avalon, on the coast of Brittany. The French 
romancers assert him to be still confined at Avalon, together 
with King Arthur, held in durance vile by the enchant- 
ments of the fay Morgana. Occasionally she removes 
from his brow the Lethaean crown, when his services are 
required to fight against the Paynim for the good and wel- 
fare of Christendom. 

Morgana, she of the Fata, was own sister to our good 
King Arthur. With other mighty fairies, she assisted at 
the birth of Holger the Dane ; later she loved him. Seduced 
by her blandishments, he espoused her : no good ever comes 
of marrying an old woman, be she mortal or fairy. Holger 
the Dane slumbers in the dungeons of Kronborg, not at 
Avalon, as the French would have it, no more than King 



1 Oluf, called God-dreng, who reigned before King Ring, is by Adam of 
Bremen supposed to be the real Holger Dansk: he accompanied Charle- 
magne to the Holy Sepulchre, and helped to place Prester John on the 
throne of India. 




THE WARTBURG, GERMANY. 



THE CASTLE OF KRONBORG 20I 

Arthur, who we all know received Christian burial at 
Glastonbury ; but French romancers do tell such wicked 
stories. Endless are the traditions, numerous the ballads, 
of the exploits of this the favourite hero of Danish story : 
when invoked, after much pressing, and, I must own it, ex- 
acting first the promise of " a good dinner and plenty to 
drink," he has frequently come to the assistance of fair 
maidens in their trouble and distress, and fought their battles 
with his enchanted sword, mounted on his good steed, 
" Papillon." Morgana, the fay, has never deserted entirely 
the country of her beloved : she still sports and exercises 
her witcheries to favoured mortals, when least expected, 
among the barren heaths and wide-spreading moors of the 
ancient provinces of Jutland. 

I have no intention, however, of visiting his prison down 
below : the wind is cast, my limbs are rheumatic — let 
younger people be more adventurous. But we pass the 
drawbridge and enter the second gate of the castle. Verses in 
the Danish tongue by the Scotchman, Bishop Kingo, and 
the more illustrious pen of Tycho Brahe, adorn the portals 
and celebrate the erection of the buildings. There is one 
thing sure in this world — monarchs never allowed their 
good works to be hid in secret : on every side you see in- 
scriptions, in letters of gold, announcing how Christian V. 
restored this, and Frederic IV. whitewashed that. But I 
must give you some account of the history of the castle. 

There is no doubt but, from the earliest period of history, 
a castle of some kind, built for the protection of the Sound, 
existed on the site or near where the Kronborg now stands. 



202 THE CASTLE OF KRONBORG 

In the year 1238 the preceding fortress of Flynderborg — 
situated at the other end of the town, near the Strandvei, 
named after the flounders, of which quantities are taken in 
front of the batteries — was in a state of excellent repair. 
This fortress being found unsuited to the exigencies of the 
times, King Frederic II. determined to rebuild it on a scale 
of unprecedented grandeur : the whole of the expenses were 
to be discharged from his privy purse, and the building was 
to cost his subjects " not one penny." This was more 
easy of execution to Frederic, first crowned Protestant 
sovereign of Denmark, than it would have proved to later 
monarchs. He had made a good haul of suppressed monas- 
teries, church lands, plate, and treasure — was flush of 
money, and did not mind spending it. The existing castle 
was then commenced in the year 1577, and completed in 
the course of nine years. Bishop Kingo and Tycho Brahe 
both sung its praises, and the talents of Rubens were called 
into play — somewhat later I imagine — for the decoration of 
the chapel. The castle is strongly fortified with double-bas- 
tion, moat, and rampart, after the manner of preceding ages. 
Kronborg possesses one great advantage over the other 
Danish buildings of the Sixteenth Century : it is built of 
fine sandstone, the only specimen in the kingdom. Though 
quadrangular and four-towered, it is relieved from all ap- 
pearance of formality by the quaint onion pagoda-like 
minarets by which its towers are surmounted. The lofty 
clock turret ^ too, rising from the centre, higher than those 

1 In 1538 the citizens of Lund received orders to pull down the stone 
churches in disuse since the Reformation, and forward the materials to 



THE CASTLE OF KRONBORG 203 

which flank the corners, adds to the dignity of the building. 
Few castles in the space of three hundred years have suffered 
so little from modern additions and improvement : one 
tower has unfortunately been destroyed. In an old engrav- 
ing from Puffendorf of 1688, I see the original had already 
been altered : it was an eyesore, but, in accordance with 
the style of the remainder, capped and ornamented. It, 
however, fell into decay during the reign of Frederic VI., 
at that unfortunate epoch when taste was bad taste, and art 
atrocity : it was repaired — square and hideous — a fearful 
monument of the age. Formerly it served as a telegraph, 
now as a powder magazine ; and unless it be blown up, or 
the powder becomes damp, will, I fear, remain untouched. 
You enter the interior court through a richly ornamented 
gateway, guarded by statues and overhung by a beautiful 
oriel window, enriched with the arms and ciphers of the 
founder. Opposite to you stands the chapel (the works of 
Rubens have long since disappeared) ; the fittings of the 
time of Christian IV. have been lately restored, but not too 
carefully. It is curious to trace, as you can by the turret 
to the right of the clock, the gradual transition from the 
Gothic to the Renaissance. The whole of the ornaments 

Copenhagen to be employed for the building of the new castle ; and again, 
in 1552, a second supply was sent. Even Laura Maria, the big bell pur- 
chased with the legacy of Bishop Absalom, was not spared ; she got cracked 
on the journey, was melted down and recast into two little ones, which 
still hang in the clock-tower of Kronborg. Laura Maria was looked upon 
almost as a saint, and Valdemar Atterdag, who believed in nothing, when 
on his death-bed is said to have roared out in a paroxysm of pain, " Help 
me, Soro ! help me, Esrom ! help me, Laura Maria, you big bell of 
Lund!" 



204 



THE CASTLE OF KRONBORG 



are of the latter period; but there is still occasionally a sort 
of feeling as if the architect was not quite decided in his 
views : whether he was or not, Kronborg is one of the most 
perfect specimens of its era — unspoiled, untouched, and un- 
repaired — to be met with in Europe. It has long ceased to 
be occupied as a royal residence. One side is alone re- 
tained for the use of His Majesty ; the rest is occupied by 
the General Commandant, the officers, and the garrison. 
Above the entrance of the clock-tower, surmounting the 
ornaments, appears the head of a huge mastiff, holding in 
his fore-paws a heart-like shield, with the cipher of Frederic 
II., and below the favourite device of the King, " T. I. 
W. B., Treu ist JViltbratt." The same Wildbratt, whose 
portrait is above, was the favourite of King Frederic, and 
bit everybody save his royal master. Over the other door 
appears the device of his good queen — good Queen Sophia 
of Mecklenburg — " Meine Hoffnung %u Gott allein " 
(My hope is in God alone). Within the dungeon of the 
corner tower, that of the restoration — adjoining the wine- 
cellars of Christian IV., where a jolly fat tun carved in stone 
above the entrance leaves no doubt of its identity — was 
situated the torture-chamber in days gone by : none of 
your papistical virgins, who enticed you to their arms, and 
larded like a fricandeau, then stuck you brimful of pen- 
knives, but good wholesome Protestant thumbscrews, boots, 
and wooden horses, and scavengers' daughters, such as 
Queen Bess of glorious memory, and our earlier Tudor 
sovereigns, to say nothing of later Stuarts loved to employ 
on their rebellious subjects who refused to convict their 



THE CASTLE OF KRONBORG 



205 



masters, rightfully or wrongfully, and bring them to the 
block — and very persuasive implements they were, I doubt 
not. In the centre of the court once stood a fountain, 
tossing the water high in the air : judging from the old 
engravings, it must have been very ornamental. Some thirty 
or forty iron hooks, fastened into the wall, remain, once 
the larder of King Frederic, hung, when game abounded, 
with deer, hare, and capercailzie — like Bolton Abbey in 
the olden time — a pretty scene, only too near the torture- 
chamber. After the peace of 1659, when Skaane was lost 
to Denmark forever, the windows of Kronborg Castle, 
which commanded a view of the Swedish coast, were walled 
up, to exclude a sight which caused so many heart-burnings. 
In 1588 was celebrated in the Castle of Kronborg the 
marriage by procuration of King James VI. of Scotland 
with Anne, daughter of King Frederic II. of Denmark. 
Anne was then in her fifteenth year. Marshal Earl Keith 
acted as proxy. This marriage settled the vexed question 
of the Orkney and Shetland Islands, pawned to Scotland 
when the Princess Margaret married King James III. 
Christian III. meditated an expedition against Mary of 
Guise, then Regent of Scotland, for their recovery and later 
offered to repay the 50,000 florins for which they had been 
pawned ; but Dantzay, by order of Catherine de'Medici, 
put a spoke into the arrangement, and they were never re- 
deemed. We all know the history of King James's adven- 
tures, and how the real marriage took place at Agershuus, 
in Norway. The royal couple then visited Denmark and 
passed a month in the Castle of Kronborg, where they 



2o6 THE CASTLE OF KRONBORG 

assisted at the nuptials, 19th April, 1590, of the queen's 
elder sister, the Princess Elizabeth, with Henry Duke of 
Brunswick. Which were the apartments occupied by King 
James and his bride during his residence no one can say — 
the interior of the building has been much altered since that 
period, the stories divided for the occupation of the garrison 
— but in all probability it was the suite called the apart- 
ments of Christian IV., now set apart for his present 
Majesty. They are not remarkable for their size, but con- 
tain fine chimney-pieces, with the cipher of the sovereign, 
and the doorways are ornamented with marble and richly- 
carved ebony. Tales are still current in Elsinore of the 
drinking-bouts held by King James and his brother-in- 
law. Prince Christian in the halls of Kronborg — how they 
fell intoxicated under the table, rolled into the ditch, etc. 

On the exterior of the castle, called Frederic III.'s battery, 
under the windows of the upper story, runs a cornice richly 
ornamented in the style of the earlier part of the Seven- 
teenth Century, in the divisions of which are represented 
medallion portraits of certain personages of the royal 
family of Denmark. Among them that of King James 
himself, with his peaked beard side by side with the full 
features of his consort Queen Anne : in the divisions of 
each side are sculptured two Tudor roses, and in the 
ornamentation of the cornice is constantly introduced the 
portcullis of the same family. The date of this cornice is 
unknown ; but it was in all probability put up to commemo- 
rate the nuptials of the King of Scots with the Princess 
Anne of Denmark. 



THE CASTLE OF KRONBORG 207 

Luckily for James was it that the embassy of Lord 
Willoughby to Kronborg took place some few years before his 
marriage, and that this Scottish assumption of the English 
badge came not to the ears of the Virgin Queen. Tudor 
he was in all right by his ancestress Margaret, in the female 
line, and nearest heir to the English throne ; but Elizabeth, 
when the succession was mooted, brooked no child's-play. 
How she would have stormed had she known it, and sent a 
fleet perchance to intercept the return of James to his 
dominions ! and the youthful Anne might have found a 
prison in Fotheringay, and a jailer in that exceedingly un- 
pleasant individual Sir Amyas Paulet. Such are the 
souvenirs of King James I have met with in the chronicles 
of Kronborg. 

One day, when on an excursion to the back slums of the 
town of Elsinore, I came on a small narrow lane, dignified 
with the appellation — in honour, I suppose, of the royal 
marriage — of Anna Queen Street. 

Having finished with pompous pageants and royal nup- 
tials, we come to a sadder period of Kronborg story. Scot- 
land still mourns the fate, and proclaims the innocence of 
Mary Stuart, the murdered Queen ; had she not been a 
Papist, England — yes, intolerant England — would have long 
since done her justice. France, who, in the last century, 
vented her venom, her calumny, against the Autrichienne, 
now exalts the memory of Marie Antoinette to that of a 
saint and martyr. So, in Denmark, all voices proclaim to- 
gether the innocence, and deplore the fate, of the youthful 
Queen of Christian VH., our English princess Caroline 



2o8 THE CASTLE OF KRONBORG 

Matilda. Here in Kronborg she was confined a prisoner, 
torn from her palace in Copenhagen, half-dressed, in the 
middle of the night, expecting daily to suffer the fate of 
Struensee and Brandt, until the arrival of a fleet from Eng- 
land effected her liberation. Accompanied by the Com- 
mandant one morning (General Lunding, the hero of 
Fredericia — military men will tell you all about it), I visited 
the apartments in which she was confined on her arrival — 
two small rooms on the ground-floor, one overshadowed by 
the bastion, the other looking on the courtyard of the castle. 
Later, I believe, the Commandant placed his own apart- 
ment at her disposal ; and in the small octagon closet of the 
lighthouse turret, which terminates the apartments of Chris- 
tian IV., it is related how the captive queen passed hours 
and days with anxious brow and straining eye, gazing at the 
waters of the Sound, in momentary expectation of the ap- 
pearance of the fleet from England, she having received 
some secret tidings of its coming. No relics of her incar- 
ceration here remain : the ancient furniture of the palace 
was unluckily removed, destroyed, and neglected in Fred- 
eric VI. 's reign. He detested Kronborg, and never visited 
Elsinore ; these recollections of his mother's imprisonment 
were odious to him, and the royal apartments fell into de- 
cay. 

The ramparts of Kronborg are charming : before them 
the fishers everlastingly ply their trade — flounders, and a 
fish called "green-bone," a horn-fish, are their prey. Had 
Shakespeare searched the world round he never could 
have selected so fitting a locality for the ghost-scene. I 



THE CASTLE OF KRONBORG 



209 



can see the ghost myself — pale moon, clouds flitting o'er 
her, frowning castle, and the space necessary to follow 
him ; but the romance of Kronborg is over ; her bastions 
are redolent with deep purple violets, and the roseate buds 
of a statice — Krigskarl, or the Warrior, they here call it — 
which looks as if it should be something better, but will, I 
dare say, turn out common thrift after all. When the fish- 
ing-boats return at sunset, a little girl runs down to the 
shore side, and waits ; as they pass by, a small flounder is 
thrown to her from each boat ; she gathers them up in her 
apron, and then returns to the castle. 



CHAUMONT SUR LOIRE 

JULES LOISELEUR 

THOSE whose natures are sufficiently artistic to seek 
that intimate and sympathetic accord that exists be- 
tween human monuments and their natural surroundings 
will do well to visit Chaumont on a fine summer's day un- 
der the rays of a scorching sun. Those strong towers built 
to withstand a siege, and those towers still so white after 
four centuries, should stand out strongly against the deep 
blue of a July sky in order to produce their full effect. 
Then that gleaming mount from which the ancient castle 
took its name, those great trees that frame it, and that lazy 
stream sleeping at its feet attain their full value. There is 
no discordant tone, nor any noise of man or beast, to dis- 
turb the majestic unity of this beautiful spectacle. 

Seated on the opposite bank, on that embankment of the 
Loire that goes back to the time of Louis le Debonnaire, at 
one glance the traveller sees a picture that would enchant a 
painter, from the Loire that ripples at his feet, the white 
houses of the little village of Chaumont extending like a 
boa at the foot of the castle, pressed in as it is between the 
hill and the river, and the stone stairway which by a hun- 
dred and sixty steps ascends the side of the hill that 
broadens towards its summit to give room for the little 
church of the bourg as well as for the giant elm planted by 



CHAUMONT SUR LOIRE 211 

Catherine de'Medici, to the castle terrace hanging two 
hundred feet above the gorge, the carved buttresses of the 
chapel in which George Amboise dreamed of the papacy, 
and the vanes of the tower from which the widow of Henry 
II. questioned the stars. At this noon-day hour when all 
nature is silent, the sun that turns the sands of the stream 
into beds of gold, and picks out ruby aigrettes in the rose 
windows of the chapel, casts the silhouettes of pilasters 
that support it on the wall of the gallery that termi- 
nates the courtyard of the castle, giving an infinite charm 
to the semi-gloom of that gallery and to the beneficently 
shaded steps that must be mounted to arrive there. 

Those who love to arrange effects and not include an en- 
tire monument in a single glance but allow it time to some 
extent to present itself to the view and successively reveal 
the various features of its physiognomy, will do well to 
avoid the rude stone stairway cut in the rock and rather 
take the verdurous avenue that leaves the road and leads by 
a lessened though still steep slope to the platform on which 
the castle stands. By this means, they will see it rise pro- 
gressively through the openings of a clump of ancient elms 
called the Queen's Mall. 

Approached on this side, Chaumont presents itself at an 
angle and spreads out in the form of a fan. At the ex- 
tremity of each of the two ribs of this fan rises a great 
tower, and the bottom of the fan which is cant-shaped is 
guarded by two somewhat smaller towers between which is 
the main entrance. 

From this disposition, it results that from the angle oc- 



212 CHAUMONT SUR LOIRE 

cupied by this gateway the visitor may include the four 
towers of the castle in one field of vision : to the left is the 
Amboise tower, which is the highest and the best preserved ; 
to the right is that of Catherine de'Medici, with its bat- 
tlements still imprinted with cabalistic signs ; and in front 
are the two towers of the gateway. On these towers and 
on the walls that connect them, about one-third of the way 
up, is a belt of carving alternately framing a mountain 
with flames issuing from its top and two C's back to back, 
DC. These carvings present a somewhat curious archaeo- 
logical puzzle. 

The outer moat, at the present day largely filled up and 
replaced by a flowery sward, somewhat relieves the heavy 
character of the drawbridge that defends the entrance to the 
castle. We must halt upon this drawbridge to examine the 
details of the thick oaken door, on which are carved the 
Twelve Apostles, and the stone medallion that decorates 
the archway. This medallion, which has recently been re- 
stored, offers a remarkable exception to the rule generally 
followed in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Century, when it 
was customary to carve above the principal gateway the 
arms of the family to whom the castle belonged, and some- 
times the statue of its founder. Here, framed by delicate 
ornamentation, we see the initials of Lous XII. and Anne 
of Brittany, his second wife : the L on a ground sewn with 
fleurs de lis and the A among the arms of Brittany. On a 
level with this medallion, arms are incrusted on the towers 
guarding the gateway : on that on the right are the arms of 
Georges d'Amboise surmounted by the cardinal's hat ; on 



CHAUMONT SUR LOIRE 



213 



the tower on the left are those of his nephew, Charles of 
Chaumont, Admiral and Grand Master of France. It is 
doubtless the latter to whom all these sculptures should be 
attributed. It is presumable that on his return from Nantes, 
where he had just espoused the widow of Charles VIII., 
Louis XII. stopped at Chaumont in company with his new 
wife and his minister, and that the Marechale de Chaumont, 
to do honour to his uncle and the royal pair, had this medal- 
lion and these arms carved on the gateway and towers, 
and therefore they date from the year 1499. 

We pass the drawbridge and the gate, leaving on our left 
a painted gallery full of luminous shadow, and find our- 
selves in a vast quadrilateral court of honour surrounded on 
three sides by bodies of buildings and having the fourth 
open on immensity. Like the others, this fourth side was 
once enclosed by buildings and flanked by two towers com- 
manding the Loire. These constructions were razed four 
hundred years ago by a counsellor of the Parliament of 
Paris, named Bertin de Vaugien, who at that time was the 
owner of the Castle. This man did an intelligent thing in 
this, but probably without suspecting it : by chance it hap- 
pened that vandalism had good taste for once. 

Leaning on the iron railing that has taken the place of 
this fourth body of buildings, the visitor gazes over an im- 
mense horizon line and a landscape " made for the delight 
of the eyes." In the foreground are terraces thick with 
flowers ; a little lower down, through the stunted trees that 
have thrust themselves through the clefts in the rock, peep 
the sharp and symmetrical roofs of the little village of 



214 



CHAUMONT SUR LOIRE 



Chaumont ; behind this village is the Loire ; behind the 
Loire stands the hamlet of Escures ; farther away is the 
railroad, the black and wearisome lines of which lengthen 
out on their gravel bed ; in the background appear the 
church of the large town of Onzain and the ruins of the 
old castle in which Voltaire wrote La Pucelle. There is no 
monument, however fairy-like it might be imagined, that 
would not be crushed by such a frame. Therefore Chau- 
mont suffers by being viewed close at hand, from the height 
of this magic balcony whence the work of divinity reveals 
itself with a splendour that effaces the finest conceptions of 
man. 

The great hall that comes after the ante-room contains 
nothing remarkable but a long chest of carved wood set 
against the wall, and a niche around which are reproduced 
the names or arms of all the lords of Chaumont from 
Eudes L, Count of Blois, who lived at the close of the 
Tenth Century and who consequently had no arms, to 
Vincent Walsh, whose arms are three lance-heads. 

A curtain over a door is raised and we are in the bed- 
chamber of Catherine de'Medici. Here the work of 
restoration is happy and sufficiently complete. Here is the 
bed of the ambitious Florentine, a bed with torso columns 
the carved top of which supports a royal crown. On one 
side is the Queen's prie-dieu with her Hours open ; on the 
other is her toilette-table with her opiate boxes ; the whole 
is framed in tapestries of high gloss which give to this 
chamber the sombre and somewhat sinister character that 
befits it. These curious tapestries were certainly made for 



CHAUMONT SUR LOIRE 



215 



Chaumont, since we see the Castle reproduced In one of 
their panels. We suppose that they date back to Charles 
d'Amboise who rebuilt Chaumont towards the end of the 
reign of Louis XL, or at least to his son, Marshal Chau- 
mont, the friend and companion of Louis XIL 

Catherine was in possession of Chaumont for nine years, 
from 1550 to 1559, that is to say, during almost the entire 
reign of her husband. This was the difficult and humilia- 
ting period of her life j that of her struggle with the Con- 
stable Montmorency and Diana of Poictiers. The curious 
hahut that is admired in this chamber must have had many 
state secrets concealed in its innumerable drawers, includ- 
ing many plots, baffled or prepared, and many formidable 
projects. This chamber, in which Catherine nursed her 
troubles as a queen and an outraged woman, possessed one 
great advantage for her. She had at hand her two guides, 
her two customary consolations, — Astrology and Religion. 
By that door she could penetrate into the tower where she 
cast horoscopes in company with Ruggieri; by the other 
one she could enter directly into the chapel. 

This pretty chapel forms a striking contrast with its 
neighbouring tower. Just in proportion as the chamber in 
the tower is deaf, cold and dumb, and admits a sinister 
light by its single window, pierced in a wall of more than 
three metres' thickness, to the same degree is the chapel 
elegant, coquettish and smiling. Windows of bold contours 
pour a flood of rosy light upon the choir, tiled with white 
faience sewn with blue crosses, producing a charming effect. 
Pretty bas-reliefs in oak upon a gold background form the 



2i6 CHAUMONT SUR LOIRE 

base of the altar. A tall and fine oak chair, carved and 
emblazoned, which is said to have belonged to Georges 
d'Amboise, stands beside the sanctuary. A red cardinal's 
hat, attached to the vault, hangs above this arm-chair. 

This chapel terminates the edifice most happily. The 
apartments that precede it have seen many masters pass 
through ; they recall many perfidies, struggles, and illustrious 
and unfortunate existences. After all this tumult of 
glorious or withered memories, our mind, like our eyes, 
finds grateful repose in the smiling and calm sanctuary. It 
reaches God by an insensible and natural law of contrast 
as the sole master who has not changed in this abode, the 
sole guest who has never left behind him anything but good 
memories and consolation. 

The Castle of Chaumont, as it has come down to us, is 
a building of the Fifteenth Century. It was erected by 
Charles Amboise on the ruins of a more ancient fortress 
razed by order of Louis XI. and which itself had been 
built about 1159 on the remains of a strong castle destroyed 
by Thibault V., Count of Blois and Champagne. The first 
and most ancient of these constructions had been built 
about 908 by Eudes I,, Count of Blois, the eldest son of 
the celebrated Thibault the Trickster. 



WINDSOR CASTLE 

THE MARQUIS OF LORNE 

FROM out the dimness of England's ancient story, 
Windsor and Winchester, and Camelot and Caerleon 
are raised aloft, lit with the light of the romance of Arthur. 
Warwick, Dover, and Belvoir, and Alnwick and Conway 
and Caernarvon, the tower of London and again Windsor, 
rise" from the times of the Norman dominion. Edinburgh, 
Kenilworth, Penshurst, and Naworth ; Carisbrooke, and 
again Windsor, remain in our sight to recall most forcibly 
the period when " our loyal passion for our temperate 
kings " began to make these castle-landmarks of our story 
scarcer in the land. 

Through all the long review of points of time that 
challenge observation, Windsor stands the most enduring 
and the most majestic of the places around which gather 
the memories of all ages of England's greatness. 

In the valley of England's famous river the Normans 
built two strong towers, that of London and that of 
Windsor. This stream nursed the cradle of Norman 
power, and saw the renewed birth of English liberty, when 
the stranger-barons, whose fathers subdued England, 
wrung from their king the great charter of the rights of 
the subject. 



2i8 WINDSOR CASTLE 

No wonder William found the hill a good place, for 
there is no fairer view in England. That from Richmond 
is not so extensive; and at Windsor he possessed besides, a 
grand forest country for his sports. His men could put off 
their chain-mail and pointed helmets with the straight face- 
guards, and give chase to the red deer, which then abounded 
all over the country, the hunters having no metal about 
them except the sharp, plain Norman spur on their heels, 
and the iron on the tips of their arrows. 

Now the distant smoke of the mightiest city in the 
world can be descried on the horizon. In those days so 
rarely was smoke visible, that signals were transmitted by 
kindling fires at market-places, and the clear air knew not 
the fumes that make the white river-fogs dark-yellow in 
colour, and stifling to breathe. The chequered appearance 
of the nearer landscape, divided by hedgerow and field to 
the north and east, is modern ; but to the south and west 
the woods of oak must present much their appearance of 
the olden days. No engineer has altered the river, or been 
able even to abate its occasional winter floods, which turn 
the banks above Windsor into a shallow lake. The further 
landscape is still what it was. It is still a wooded land. 
There are no sterile patches, no ugly intervals, no naked 
tracts of sand or earth. All is green, and better than in 
the early days in this — that the cheerfulness of peace is on 
it, and the "stately homes" are more frequent, and the 
villages need no rampart, but expand in security, and, it 
must be added, often with a system of architecture tq 
which distance alone can lend enchantment. 



WINDSOR CASTLE 



2ig 



The Castle was very strong. These keeps were built so 
that there was no chance of a surprise. Massive gates 
placed in security beyond deep ditches were let into the 
walls, well defended by battlement and flanking towers. 
Drawbridges and portcullises might be forced, but there 
the enemy only found himself at the beginning of his 
work. 

Narrow passages led to other defences, and the keep 
itself was reached by a stair so narrow that one man only 
could enter at a time. 

The walls of the lowest story showed only tiny shot- or 
loop-holes. The second story showed more of these, but 
so narrow that no torch could be thrown in. The third 
story had windows so high in the wall that arrows or bolts 
shot from below could only hit the arch of the opening, to 
fall back harmless. 

The top stories were filled with weapons that could 
throw darts, stones, and heavy balls, so assailants could not 
easily take a Norman keep. 

The Normans had taste as well as strength, and gradually 
the whole neighbourhood was made more beautiful. During 
reign after reign the kings showered favours on their finest 
possession. 

Around the Keep arose a Central Ward — that is the 
space outside was enclosed with towers and walls and 
gardens. Then lower down the ridge another king built a 
church, and beyond it again other great towers, as the town 
arose, under the Castle's shelter and protection. This part 
was again flanked and made strong, and called the Lower 



220 WINDSOR CASTLE 

Ward. The church was dedicated first to St. Edmond, and 
then to St. George. 

But on the other side of the Keep the monarchs built 
themselves something in the way of lodging far better than 
the small rooms of the Keep, for a wide range of palace 
apartments existed there before even the days of the Tudors. 
These were extended and improved from the days of Queen 
Elizabeth to the days of Oueen Victoria. These buildings 
formed the Upper Ward. 

The effect of this mass of buildings, dominated by the 
Round Tower, is very fine, and no better example exists of 
the feudal fortress. Whether seen from the river, with the 
red-roofed houses of the town clustered below the great 
white walls, or from the park, where Windsor rises like an 
enchanted castle above the wide greensward, which is 
varied with the groves of ancient oak and beech, there is 
nothing to compare with it. 

All who speak the English tongue may be equally proud 
of the palace strength of their great forefathers. 

Chambers built over castle gateways were often used 
as prisons for those whose lot was not to be made too hard. 
For the unfortunates who were to be severely dealt with, a 
far more horrible prison was provided in the shape of a 
dungeon with a narrow orifice above, through which the 
victim was let down with cords into a vault, having often 
no windows. Places like this must have soon become foul 
and fatal to the captives. 

At Windsor there is a very fair prison above the gate- 
way, through which you must pass before entering the great 



WINDSOR CASTLE 221 

Stair that climbs the mound of the Keep. Although the 
windows are narrow they give light enough, and on the 
walls are the names of the men who here, in their durance 
vile, amused themselves by writing their name or making 
their mark by scratches on the stone. Sometimes they 
added a little tracing of their arms. 

These small rooms are among the few which remain ex- 
actly as they existed in the Middle Ages. In other apart- 
ments there has been much alteration. Most of the ceilings 
of Verrio are gone, the ancient tapestries have been removed, 
the heavy ornamentation of the times of the Georges, and 
almost all the still ponderous yet better decorations of 
Jacobean times, have disappeared. 

But the towers which held celebrated prisoners of State 
are yet pointed out. The two most notable are just under 
the hill on which the great round Keep is built. One of 
these has been raised high, and a very narrow stair com- 
municates with each of its little rooms. Here King John 
of France had many a long hour in which to repent of his 
bad generalship at Poictiers, where the young Black Prince 
took him prisoner. Here he was brought after that ride 
through the streets of London, which must have been to 
him so humiliating, although he was shown much courtesy 
by his captor. 

It was the opposite tower across the Upper Ward, with 
better accommodations that Henry V. of England assigned 
to the use of the young King of Scotland, who had been 
illegally captured during a time of truce. Young James of 
Scotland's uncle, the old Duke of Albany, was not sup- 



222 WINDSOR CASTLE 

posed to be particularly sorry to have his sovereign and 
nephew kept in England, for it gave Albany all power 
in Scotland. So at Windsor James remained for nearly 
twenty years, becoming expert in literature and in knightly 
exercises. 

The English were kind to him, and it was from this 
building of his captivity, now called Edward the Third's 
Tower, that he saw his future Queen, a daughter of the 
House of Beaufort, walking in the garden at the base of the 
Keep. 

His long residence in England was beneficial to James 
in many ways, and when he was at last allowed to return 
to his northern kingdom, he entered it the most accom- 
plished knight of his time. He was much beloved by the 
English, with whom he managed, when on the throne, 
to keep on fair terms. His reign was illustrious, and 
worthy of a better close than that of the tragic assassination 
by which it was ended. 

We need not think of all the terrible things that have 
happened at Windsor Castle — of prisoners dying by inches 
in dark dungeons ; of men mutilated for treason, like the 
Earl of Eu j of the rare attacks the Castle has been called 
to endure ; of the ruin wrought in glorious chapel and halls 
by Cromwell's soldiery. For Windsor has chiefly been as- 
sociated with the brighter and more cheery events of the 
national life. 

Here, more often than in any other royal home, were the 
joy-bells rung for the births and marriages of our princes ; 
although here, too, the funeral knell has also been often 



WINDSOR CASTLE 223 

heard ; for it is the tomb, as it is the dwelling-place, of the 
monarchs of England. 

The most daring and most romantic of the Constables of 
the Round Tower, the fiery Prince Rupert, made his rooms 
beautiful with pictures, with tapestry, and with ornament. 
At once an artist and a warrior, such as few countries have 
produced, he lived to see the palace a prey to the spoiler. 

Earlier as well as later days are recalled by the buildings 
below, which are now devoted to the library. They over- 
look the Thames and England's great school of Eton. 
From their windows one gazes across the river far below, 
on the roofs and towers of the college founded by Henry VI. 

Between the groups of houses and the thickly-scattered 
trees one may catch glimpses of bands of boys in the dis- 
tance playing football or cricket, or rowing on the Thames. 
The poet Gray, looking on the same cheerful scene, wrote 
gloomily, " Alas ! regardless of their doom, the little vic- 
tims play." Well, they are fortunate victims, and the men 
who have been at school there would gladly live over again 
the years they spent at Eton. 

It was in this part of the Castle that Queen Elizabeth 
lived and moved and had her imperious being. It was in 
a little chamber in a turret here that Queen Anne received 
the despatch from Marlborough wishing her joy on the vic- 
tory of Blenheim. He wrote on a scrap of paper from the 
field, " Your Majesty's troops have had a great victory, and 
Marshall Tallard is in my coach." He had, with Prince 
Eugene, achieved one of the most fruitful successes of that 
reign of victories. 



224 



WINDSOR CASTLE 



The old look of a fortress has given way to that of the 
palace, fearing no foeman ; and long may this be so ! But 
the Castle could be made strong against everything save 
long-range artillery. The walls could contain a large force, 
and its underground apartments have the solidity of bomb- 
proof. Sentries pace its ramparts, and a regiment of guards 
is also at hand. 

Nor is it dependent for water on river or outside supply. 
Not long ago a room in the Round Tower was complained 
of as always cold. The floor was taken up, and there lay 
a vast circular stone with great iron rings. By these it was 
lifted, and a deep, carefully-constructed Norman well was 
discovered, going down to the level of the Thames itself. 

The interior of the group of rooms extending from the 
north side of the Norman Gate to the angle at which the 
red-coated porters await visitors, now devoted to a fine li- 
brary, is not always shown. But for those who have leave, 
a most interesting collection of medals, illuminated manu- 
scripts, ancient buildings, and Oriental miniatures, is dis- 
played. Handsome Elizabethan chimney-pieces, on one of 
which the great Queen herself is represented, warm the 
north wall. The windows on the other, embayed in 
presses full of well-arranged literature, look out towards 
that far-off church, the spire of which is easily recognised 
through glass, where Gray wrote his immortal Elegy. One 
little room is that in which Queen Anne was sitting when 
Marlborough's despatch announcing the victory of Blen- 
heim was brought to her. 

Where the library ends is the first of a set of splendid 



WINDSOR CASTLE 



225 



apartments, used only by the public and the greatest sov- 
ereigns. Paintings by Zuccarelli, who, at his best, is 
always most pleasing, are hung over cabinets containing 
very beautiful porcelain. Onwards, on the north side, 
room after room can be most profitably examined, for the 
pictures are of particular interest, either on account of their 
history or their art. Formerly the Sovereign's family lived 
in this part of the Castle. Now they live on the southern 
side of the Upper Ward, where dwelt in other days the 
great officers of state. 



THE PALACE OF URBINO 

JOHN ADDINGTON SYMONDS 

THE sunset was almost spent, and a four days' moon 
hung above the Western Apennines, when we took 
our first view of the palace. It is a fancy-thralling work of 
wonder seen in that dim twilight; like some castle reared 
by Atlante's magic for imprisonment of Ruggiero, or palace 
sought in fairyland by Astolf winding his enchanted horn. 
Where shall we find its like, combining, as it does, the 
buttressed battlemented bulk of mediaeval strongholds with 
the airy balconies, suspended gardens, and fantastic turrets 
of Italian pleasure-houses ? This unique blending of the 
feudal past with the Renaissance spirit of the time when it 
was built, connects it with the art of Ariosto — or more ex- 
actly with Boiardo's epic. Duke Federigo planned his 
palace at Urbino just at the moment when the Count of 
Scandiano had begun to chaunt his lays of Roland in the 
Castle of Ferrara. Chivalry, transmuted by the Italian 
genius into something fanciful and quaint, survived as a 
frail work of art. The man-at-arms of the Condottieri 
still glittered in gilded hauberks. Their helmets waved 
with plumes and bizarre crests. Their surcoats blazed 
with heraldries ; their velvet caps with medals bearing 
legendary emblems. The pomp and circumstance of feu- 
dal war had not yet yielded to the cannon of the Gascon or 
the Switzer's pike. The fatal age of foreign invasions had 




THE PALACE OF URBIXO, ITALY. 



THE PALACE OF URBINO 



227 



not begun for Italy. Within a few years Charles VIII. 's 
holiday excursion would reveal the internal rottenness and 
weakness of her rival states, and the peninsula for half a 
century to come would be drenched in the blood of French- 
men, Germans, Spaniards, fighting for her cities as their 
prey. But now Lorenzo de'Medici was still alive. The 
famous policy which bears his name held Italy suspended 
for a golden time in false tranquillity and independence. 
The princes who shared his culture and his love of art were 
gradually passing into modern noblemen, abandoning the 
savage feuds and passions of more virile centuries, yielding 
to luxury and scholarly enjoyments. The castles were be- 
coming courts, and despotisms won by force were settling 
into dynasties. 

It was just at this epoch that Duke Federigo built his 
castle at Urbino. One of the ablest and wealthiest Con- 
dottieri of his time, one of the best instructed and humanest 
of Italian princes, he combined in himself the qualities 
which mark that period of transition. And these he im- 
pressed upon his dwelling-house, which looks backward to 
the mediseval fortalice and forward to the modern palace. 
This makes it the just embodiment in architecture of Italian 
romance, the perfect analogue of the " Orlando Innamorato." 
By comparing it with the castle of the Estes at Ferrara and 
the Palazzo del Te of the Gonzagas at Mantua, we place 
it in its right position between mediaeval and Renaissance 
Italy, between the age when principalities arose upon the 
ruins of commercial independence and the age when they 
became dynastic under Spain. 



228 THE PALACE OF URBINO 

The exigencies of the ground at his disposal forced 
Federigo to give the building an irregular outline. The 
fine facade, with its embayed loggie and flanking turrets, is 
placed too close upon the city ramparts for its due effect. 
We are obliged to cross the deep ravine which separates it 
from a lower quarter of the town, and take our station 
near the Oratory of S. Giovanni Battista, before we can 
appreciate the beauty of its design, or the boldness of the 
group it forms with the cathedral dome and tower and 
square masses of numerous out-buildings. Yet this peculiar 
position of the palace, though baffling to a close observer 
of its details, is one of singular advantage to its inhabitants. 
Set on the verge of Urbino's towering eminence, it fronts a 
wave-tossed sea of vales and mountain summits towards 
the rising and the setting sun. There is nothing but 
illimitable air between the terraces and loggias of the 
Duchess's apartments and the spreading pyramid of Monte 
Catria. 

A nobler scene is nowhere swept from palace windows 
than this, which Castiglione touched in a memorable passage 
at the end of his Cortegiano. To one who in our day 
visits Urbino, it is singular how the slight indications of 
this sketch, as in some silhouette, bring back the antique 
life, and link the present with the past — a hint, perhaps, 
for reticence in our descriptions. The gentlemen and 
ladies of the court had spent a summer night in long debate 
on love, rising to the height of mystical Platonic rapture on 
the lips of Bembo, when one of them exclaimed, " The 
day has broken ! " " He pointed to the light which was 



THE PALACE OF URBINO 



229 



beginning to enter by the fissures of the windows. Where- 
upon we flung the casements wide upon that side of the 
palace which looks towards the high peak of Monte Catria, 
and saw that a fair dawn of rosy hue was born already in 
the eastern skies, and all the stars had vanished except the 
sweet regent of the heaven of Venus, who holds the border- 
lands of day and night ; and from her sphere it seemed as 
though a gentle wind were breathing, filling the air with 
eager freshness, and waking among the numerous woods 
upon the neighbouring hills the sweet-toned symphonies of 
joyous birds." 

Duke Frederick began the palace at Urbino in 1454, 
when he was still only Count. The architect was Luziano 
of Lauranna, a Dalmatian, and the beautiful white lime- 
stone, hard as marble, used in the construction, was brought 
from the Dalmatian coast. This stone, like the Istrian 
stone of Venetian buildings, takes and retains the chisel 
mark with wonderful precision. It looks as though, when 
fresh, it must have had the pliancy of clay, so delicately are 
the finest curves in scroll or foliage scooped from its 
substance. And yet it preserves each cusp and angle of 
the most elaborate pattern with the crispness and the sharp- 
ness of a crystal. When wrought by a clever craftsman, 
its surface has neither the waxiness of the Parian, nor the 
brittle edge of Carrara marble ; and it resists weather better 
than marble of the choicest quality. This may be observed 
in many monuments of Venice, where the stone has been 
long exposed to sea-air. These qualities of the Dalmatian 
limestone, no less than its agreeable creamy hue and smooth 



230 



THE PALACE OF URBINO 



dull polish, adapt it to decoration in dull relief. The most 
attractive details in the palace at Urbino are friezes carved 
of this material in choice designs of early Renaissance 
dignity and grace. One chimney-piece in the Sala degli 
Angeli deserves special comment. A frieze of dancing 
Cupids, with gilt hair and wings, their naked bodies left 
white on a ground of ultramarine, is supported by broad flat 
pilasters. These are engraved with children holding pots 
of flowers ; roses on one side, carnations on the other. 
Above the frieze another pair of angels, one at each end, 
hold lighted torches ; and the pyramidal cap of the chimney 
is carved with two more, flying, and supporting the eagle of 
the Montefeltri on a raised medallion. Throughout the 
palace we notice emblems appropriate to the Houses of 
Montefeltro and Delia Rovere : their arms, three golden 
bends upon a field of azure : the Imperial eagle, granted 
when Montefeltro was made a fief of the Empire : The 
Garter of England, worn by the Dukes Federigo and 
Guidobaldo : The ermine of Naples : the ventosa^ or cup- 
ping-glass, adopted for a private badge by Frederick : the 
golden oak-tree on an azure field of Delia Rovere : the 
palm-tree, bent beneath a block of stone, with its accom- 
panying motto, Inclinata Resurgam : the cipher, FE DX. 
Profile medallions of Federigo and Guidobaldo, wrought in 
the lowest possible relief, adorn the staircases. Round the 
great courtyard runs a frieze of military engines and ensigns, 
trophies, machines, and implements of war, alluding to 
Duke Frederick's profession of Condottiere. The door- 
ways are enriched with scrolls of heavy-headed flowers, 



THE PALACE OF URBINO 



231 



acanthus foliage, honey-suckles, ivy-berries, birds and boys 
and sphinxes, in all the riot of Renaissance fancy. 

This profusion of sculptured rilievo is nearly all that re- 
mains to show how rich the palace was in things of beauty. 
Castiglione, writing in the reign of Guidobaldo, says that 
" in the opinion of many it is the fairest to be found in Italy ; 
and the Duke filled it so well with all things fitting its mag- 
nificence, that it seemed less like a palace than a city. Not 
only did he collect articles of common use, vessels of sil- 
ver, the trappings for chambers of rare cloths of gold and 
silk, and such-like furniture, but he added multitudes of 
bronze and marble statues, exquisite pictures, and instru- 
ments of music of all sorts. There was nothing but was 
of the finest and most excellent quality to be seen there. 
Moreover, he gathered together at a vast cost a large num- 
ber of the best and rarest books on Greek, Latin, and He- 
brew, all of which he adorned with gold and silver, esteem- 
ing them the chiefest treasure of his spacious palace." 
When Cesare Borgia entered Urbino as conqueror in 1502, 
he is said to have carried ofF loot to the value of 150,000 
ducats, or perhaps about a quarter of a million sterling. 

The impression left upon the mind after traversing this 
palace in its length and breadth is one of weariness and dis- 
appointment. How shall we reconstruct the long-past life 
which filled its rooms with sound, the splendour of its 
pageants, the thrill of tragedies enacted here ? It is not 
difficult to crowd its doors and vacant spaces with liveried 
servants, slim pages in tight hose, whose well-combed hair 
escapes from tiny caps upon their silken shoulders. We 



232 



THE PALACE OF URBINO 



may even replace the tapestries of Troy which hung one 
hall, and build again the sideboards with their embossed 
gilded plate. But are these chambers really those where 
Emilia Pia held debate on love with Bemboand Castiglione ; 
where Bibbiena's witticisms and Fra Serafino's pranks raised 
smiles on courtly lips ; where Bernardo Accolti, " the 
Unique," declaimed his verses to applauding crowds ? Is it 
possible that into yonder hall, where now the lion of S. 
Mark looks down alone on staring desolation, strode the 
Borgia in all his panoply of war, a gilded glittering dragon, 
and from the dais tore the Montefeltri's throne, and from 
the arras stripped their ensigns, replacing those with his own 
Bull and Valentinus Dux ? Here Tasso tuned his lyre for 
Francesco Maria's wedding-feast and read Am'inta to 
Lucrezia d'Este. Here Guidobaldo listened to the jests 
and whispered scandals of the Aretine. Here Titian set 
his easel up to paint; here the boy Raphael, cap in hand, 
took, signed and sealed credentials from his Duchess to the 
Gonfalonier of Florence. Somewhere in these huge 
chambers, the courtiers sat before a torch-lit stage, when 
Bibbiena's Calandr'ia and Castiglione's T'lrsi^ with their 
miracles of masques and mummers, whiled the night away. 
Somewhere, we know not where, Guiliano de'Medici made 
love in these bare rooms to that mysterious mother of ill- 
fated Cardinal Ippolito ; somewhere, in some darker nook, 
the bastard Alessandro sprang to his strange-fortuned life of 
tyranny and license, which Brutus-Lorenzino cut short 
with a traitor's poignard-thrust in Via Larga. How many 
men, illustrious for arts and letters, memorable by their 



THE PALACE OF URBINO 



233 



virtues or their crimes, have trod these silent corridors, 
from the great Pope Julius down to James III., self-titled 
King of England, vi^ho tarried here with Clementina 
Sobieski through some twelve months of his ex-royal exile ! 
The memories of all this folk, flown guests and masters of 
the still-abiding palace-chambers, haunt us as we hurry- 
through. They are but filmy shadows. We cannot grasp 
them, localize them, people surrounding emptiness with 
more than withering cobweb forms. 

It is easier to conjure up the past of this great palace, 
strolling round it in free air and twilight ; perhaps because 
the landscape and the life still moving on the city streets 
bring its exterior into harmony with real existence. The 
southern facade, with its vaulted balconies and flanking 
towers, takes the fancy, fascinates the eye, and lends itself 
as a fit stage for puppets of the musing mind. Once more 
imagination plants trim orange-trees in giant jars of Gubbio 
ware upon the pavement where the garden of the Duchess 
lay — the pavement paced in these bad days by convicts in 
grey canvas jackets — that pavement where Monsignor 
Bembo courted " dear dead women " with Platonic phrase, 
smothering the Menta of his natural man in lettuce culled 
from Academe and thyme of Mount Hymettus. In yonder 
loggia, lifted above the garden and the court, two lovers are 
in earnest converse. They lean beneath the coffered arch, 
against the marble of the balustrade, he fingering his dagger 
under the dark velvet doublet, she playing with a clove car- 
nation, deep as her own shame. The man is Giannandrea, 
broad-shouldered bravo of Verona, Duke Guidobaldo's fa- 



234 



THE PALACE OF URBINO 



vourite and carpet-count. The lady is Madonna Maria, 
daughter of Rome's Prefect, widow of Venanzio Verano, 
whom the Borgia strangled. On their discourse a tale will 
hang of a woman's frailty and a man's boldness — Camer- 
ino's Duchess yielding to a low-born suitor's stalwart 
charms. And more will follow, when that lady's brother, 
furious Francesco Maria della Rovere, shall stab the bravo 
in torch-litten palace-rooms with twenty poignard strokes 
'twixt waist and throat, and their Pandarus shall be sent 
down to his account by a varlet's coltellata through the mid- 
riff. Imagination shifts the scene, and shows in that same 
loggia Rome's warlike Pope, attended by his cardinals and 
all Urbino's chivalry. The snowy beard of Julius flows 
down upon his breast, where jewels clasp the crimson 
mantle, as in Raphael's picture. His eyes are bright with 
wine ; for he has come to gaze on sunset from the banquet- 
chamber and to watch the line of lamps which soon will 
leap along that palace cornice in his honour. Behind him 
lies Bologna humbled. The Pope returns, a conqueror to 
Rome. Yet once again imagination is at work. A gaunt, 
bold man, close-habited in Spanish black, his spare, fine 
features carved in purest ivory, leans from that balcony. 
Gazing with hollow eyes, he tracks the swallows in their 
flight, and notes that winter is at hand. This is the last 
Duke of Urbino, Francesco Maria II., he whose young 
wife deserted him, who made for himself alone a hermit- 
pedant's round of petty cares and niggard avarice and mean 
brained superstition. He drew a second consort from the 
convent, and raised up seed unto his line by forethought, 



THE PALACE OF URBINO 235 

but beheld his princeling fade untimely in the bloom of 
boyhood. Nothing is left but solitude. To the mortmain 
of the Church reverts Urbino's lordship, and even now he 
meditates the terms of devolution. Jesuits cluster in the 
rooms behind, with comfort for the ducal soul and calcula- 
tions for the interests of Holy See. 

Filippo Visconti, with a smile on his handsome face, is 
waiting for us at the inn. His horses sleek, well-fed, and 
rested, toss their heads impatiently. We take our seats in 
the carriage, open wide beneath a sparkling sky, whirl past 
the palace and its ghost-like recollections, and are half-way 
on the road to Fossombrone in a cloud of dust and whir of 
wheels before we think of looking back to greet Urbino. 
There is just time. The last decisive turning lies in front. 
We stand bareheaded to salute the grey mass of buildings 
ridged along the sky. Then the open road invites us with 
its varied scenery and movement. 



ALNWICK CASTLE 

CUTHBERT BEDE 

ALNWICK is built on the summit of the southern 
bank of the Aln, on a plateau of five acres of 
ground, walled round with strong fortifications, defended by 
sixteen towers, and divided into two large courtyards, with 
the Keep in the midst. The Keep is polygonal in form, 
faced by nine towers, and is built round a third, or inner 
court. We have the northern side of the second court- 
yard, with the Round (or Record) Tower; next to that is 
the abutment, called the Ravine Tower, in whose recess is 
the stone seat called " Hotspur's Chair," and between 
which and the Record Tower is " the Bloody Gap," — a 
name given to that part of the curtain-wall from a breach 
being there made by the Scots during some Border war, in a 
vain effort to capture the castle. Three hundred Scots are 
said to have fallen there, and the extent of " the Bloody 
Gap " is plainly to be discerned from the variations in the 
masonry. We then come to the Constable's Tower, and 
the Postern Tower, or Sally Port, and then to the Keep 
itself, which was protected by a low curtain-wall, carried in 
a semicircle to the Armourer's Tower and the Falconer's 
Tower. These are the two towers lately swept away 
(together with their curtain-wall) in order to accommodate 
the arrangements consequent upon the erection of the 



ALNWICK CASTLE 



237 



Prudhoe Tower, for which also the two north-western 
round towers of the Keep were also destroyed. One of 
these towers contains the ancient banqueting-hall of the 
Percies ; and the successive sacrifice of these four towers 
with their many interesting evidences of feudal times, in 
order that the modern Italian interior of the castle might 
not be interfered with, has raised a storm of discussion 
among such distinguished architects as Scott, Cockerell, 
Donaldson, Godwin, Pocock, Ferguson, and Salvin, under 
whom the recently completed works have been carried out, 
chiefly from the designs of Commendatore Canina. These 
works have been hailed with applause, and hailed upon with 
disapprobation. It is an example of one of those Sir 
Roger de Coverley cases, where much may be said on both 
sides. In the last six years these works have magically 
transformed the interior of the feudal castle of the chival- 
rous Earls of Northumberland (much debased, it is true, by 
Batty-Langley and Strawberry-Hill Gothic) into a Roman 
palazzo, with the most gorgeous and costly decorations of 
the Renaissance. For six years have two hundred work- 
men been employed in these alterations ; much has been 
done at Rome, and much on the spot, especially by the 
twenty-seven native wood-carvers. There are no shams 
in the decorations ; the ceilings and cornices are carved, 
and not cast or moulded : the walnut and maple-woods are 
what they pretend to be ; and, to such an extent has this 
Ruskinism " conscientiousness of art " been carried that, in 
this age of papier-mache^ carton-pierre^ gutta-percha, and 
the like, there are several miles of the egg-ornament labor- 



238 



ALNWICK CASTLE 



iously carved by hand, while a door panel has occupied its 
carver four months, and a shutter-panel, a twelvemonth. 
This modern sumptuousness of decoration is a remarkable 
contrast to that peculiar species of economy imposed upon 
the proud Percies of three centuries back, when Clarkson's 
report (in 1567) advised the taking out of the glass win- 
dows whenever my lord and his friends were not there, and 
laying them up in safety until their return, justifying this 
economical act by the " decaye and waste " of the windows 
" throwe extreme winds." 

Next to these now destroyed Armourer's and Falconer's 
Towers, comes the Abbot's Tower (the large corner one), 
where the abbot had apartments, whenever choice or neces- 
sity caused him to leave his abbey, snugly situated down in 
the wooded valley by the river-side. Beyond this is seen 
the West Garret, and the outer of " Utter Ward," with its 
square and octagonal towers, and its advanced barbican, 
forming a picturesque mass of great size and strength, and 
a noble entrance to a noble castle. 

Walking along the parapets from the Round Tower, we 
pass East Garret. Beginning at the left hand, we first 
come to the Guard House, and the Auditor's Tower, 
which flank the southern gate. The south wall is then 
continued to the Middle Ward, which, as being the second 
great entrance to the castle, is a building of great size and 
strength. Over it was the chapel, approached from the ' 
library, — a noble room that occupied the greater part of 
this block of building — but which has now been converted 
into the private apartments of the Duke and Duchess. 



ALNWICK CASTLE 



239 



This block of building divides the two courtyards, and is 
terminated in the Keep, whose two semi-octagonal towers 
were added, in advance, to the old square Norman tower, 
by the second Lord Percy, about the year 1350. 

A series of escutcheons on the upper part of the towers 
helps us to the date of their erection ; and though we know 
not their architect, we have full proof that he did his work 
well, for the towers have not needed repairs up to this day, 
and even a rector's legal adviser would experience some 
difficulty in awarding dilapidations. The moat and draw- 
bridge that guarded the entrance to the Keep have long 
since passed away ; but, at the time of my visit, a field- 
piece, backed up by a pyramidal pile of cannon balls, did 
harmless duty on either side of the gateway, and playfully 
menaced the Auditor's Tower and the Guard House on the 
opposite side of the courtyard. 

The ground-floor of the octagonal towers of the Keep is 
lighted by long arrow slits that admit a thin wedge of light 
to the wine-cellar, on the left hand, and to the chief dun- 
geon, on the right. Each of the lodges at the various gates 
was furnished with dungeons ; but this was the chief dun- 
geon for the State offenders. Its size is eleven feet four 
inches, by ten feet four inches. In the floor is an iron 
grating, over a pit; and, a light being lowered into this for 
the depth of eleven feet, discloses a horrible grave (worthy 
of Naples and the dark ages) nine feet by eight, into which 
the wretched prisoner was lowered, or shot like a sack 
of coals. Let us thank Heaven that such a place can now 
only be shown as a curiosity. The breakfast-room was 



240 



ALNWICK CASTLE 



over the gateway : we see one of its windows over the 
mound of the Keep. The windows in the first round 
tower, and the windows in the flat wall to the left, lighted 
the old dining-room. The next round tower contained the 
old drawing-room whose interior shape was that of the ace 
of clubs. A portion of the low curtain-wall is seen at the 
base of the Keep mound ; and then, immediately on the 
right is the postern tower, or sally-port. In the lower part 
was a laboratory ; in the upper part, a collection of old 
armour, and a museum of miscellaneous antiquities ; Roman 
remains ; small cannon, used at the first invention of gun- 
powder ; and the old standard bushel of Northumberland, 
and a chain of several links, that could be bound around an 
arm, like an iron chain, and was carved out of a solid block 
of stone. 

Let us now pass between those two great octagonal 
towers, and up the long dark tunnel that will lead us into the 
heart of the Keep, the third, or inner court ; the carriages 
rattle under that dark archway with a peculiar dull sound, 
for its pavement is of wood, as is also the pavement of the 
inner court. It is a polygon, having nine sides of various 
dimensions, besides other little angles, and it is about a 
hundred feet across from the one side to the other ; and, as 
it is walled in with high towers on every side, it has some- 
what of a well-like aspect. Its two great architectural and 
antiquarian curiosities are the Saxon (or Norman, if you are 
a great stickler for this point) mouldings on the inner face 
of the archway, presenting a great diversity of enrichments 
— and the old draw-well, for the use of the castle during a 



ALNWICK CASTLE 



241 



siege. This is built in the thickness of the wall, with three 
pointed arches, surmounted by one large discharging arch, 
on the point of which is a humorous-looking corbel, sup- 
porting the figure of a priest, who is in the attitude of 
blessing the water. The old axle, with its pegged hand- 
wheels, still remains, and this interesting draw-well has not 
been interfered with in the recent alterations, though the 
aspect of the Inner Court has been altered by the addition 
of the covered drive. 

The limits of this paper do not allow me to say more of 
Alnwick Castle, or to touch, upon the varied events that 
have befallen it and its owners, from those early Percy days 
when — 

" in the Conqueror's fleet 
Lord William shipp'd his powers," 

(as one of the family has told us in his ballad of the Hermit 
of Warkworth) down to those later times of handsome Hugh 
Smithson, the London apothecary, and his descendants, 
when, as the American poet Halleck sings in that ballad, 
which is not so well known (in its entirety) as it deserves 
to be : — 

" The present representatives 
Of Hotspur and his gentle Kate, 
Are some half-dozen serving-men. 
In the drab coats of William Penn — " 

who will bow you 

" From donjon vault, to turret wall. 
For ten-and-sixpence sterling." 

I have not space to dwell upon these matters, although 



242 



ALNWICK CASTLE 



there is very much to interest us in the records of the 
Castle and its owners, and much for salient anecdote and 
gossip, not only as to the people but also their manners and 
customs. As, for example, that curious manuscript book, 
dated 15 12, which tells us how the fifth Earl and his family 
lived ; they had fresh meat from Midsummer to Michaelmas, 
and salt meat for all the rest of the year ; how the servants 
rarely had anything else than salt meat, with few or no veg- 
etables (the roast beef of Old England being a mere Jack- 
o'-Lantern to them) ; how my lord and lady had no sheets 
to their bed, and only washed their tablecloths once a 
month ; how they rose at six, breakfasted at seven on a quart 
of beer, a quart of wine, two pieces of salt fish, six red her- 
rings, four white herrings, and a dish of sprats — half a chyne 
of mutton and a chyne of boiled beef being added on flesh 
days; how they dined at ten and supped at four, and went to 
bed at nine; how there were only two cooks, with two assist- 
ants to provide for a household of two hundred and twenty- 
three, and how the head cook was so great a monarch that 
when he gives an order for the making of mustard it bears 
this preamble : " It seemeth good to us and our council ; " 
how the players at Christmas had twenty-pence for every 
play, and the rockers in the nursery had as many shillings 
each year ; how, in the winter, only a peck of coals were 
allowed for each fire, and no fires after Lady-day, except 
half-fires for my lord and lady, and the nursery. There is 
all this, and very much more, that is both curious and 
interesting, but space, and not material, fails me. 

Nor can I speak of the out-of-door lions of Alnwick, — 



ALNWICK CASTLE 



243 



the park, the gardens, the model farm, the Duchess's dairy, 
the ruins of Alnwick Abbey, down in the sequestered dell 
by the river, the ruins of Hulne Abbey upon the slope of 
the hill over against the Castle — Brislee Tower, a Straw- 
berry-hill erection eighty feet high, called by Mr. Walter 
White " an elegant structure " ; but, in my humble opinion, 
a very hideous affair, and a fit companion to Kew Pagoda ; 
and more useful than ornamental, for the summit commands 
a glorious view ; — the monument to commemorate the 
capture of William the Lion, and the cross to commemorate 
the death of King Malcolm. It bears the following in- 
scriptions : " Malcolm III., King of Scotland, besieging 
Alnwick Castle, was slain here, Nov. XIII., an. MXCIII. 
— K. Malcolm's cross, decayed by time, was restored 
by his descendant, Eliz. Dutchess of Northumberland, 
MDCCLXXIV." It is distant about three-quarters of a 
mile from the castle, on the opposite side of the river; but, 
from what the ancient chartulary of Alnwick Abbey says, 
the spot where Malcolm died was two or three hundred 
yards nearer to the castle, where Malcolm's Well now is. 
Malcolm was ravaging Northumberland with fire and 
sword, and, in due course, laid siege to Alnwick, which was 
stoutly defended by Moroll of Bamburgh. When the 
garrison could hold out no longer, a certain man rode forth 
to Malcolm, bearing the keys of the castle tied to the end 
of his spear, and presented himself in a suppliant posture, 
as being come to surrender up possession. Malcolm 
advanced to receive the keys, when the soldier pierced him 
with a mortal wound, and, dashing through the swollen 



244 



ALNWICK CASTLE 



river, escaped by the fleetness of his horse. Malcolm 
dropped dead ; a panic arose among the Scots, and the 
desperate defenders of Alnwick made a successful sortie, 
and put their enemy to the rout. Prince Edward, Malcolm's 
eldest son, received mortal wounds in this fight. The old 
Abbey chronicle says that the soldier's name was Hammond, 
and the place where he swam the river was called " Ham- 
mond's Ford." But Hector Boetius has improved the 
story into a legend, and says the soldier's name was 
Mowbray, and that he pierced Malcolm through the eye, 
and from that circumstance acquired the name of Pierce- 
eye, and became the founder of the proud family of Percy, 
Earls of Northumberland. A very pretty legend, but 
somewhat damaged by obtrusive facts, especially by that 
fact that the ancestor of the family was that William de 
Percy, of the town of Percy in Lower Normandy, who 
was one of the Norman chieftains who came over with the 
Conqueror, and whose name is recorded in the rolls of 
Battle Abbey. 



THE PALACE OF SAINT-CLOUD 

J. J. BOURRASSEE. 

THE name Saint-Cloud involuntarily carries us back 
to one of the most agitated epochs of our history 
and recalls a scene of savage violence. Clodowald, son of 
Clodomir, King of Orleans, saw his two brothers assas- 
sinated before his eyes : the executioners were his two 
uncles. The cruel spectacle was never effaced from his 
memory. Clodowald himself cut off his long hair, the 
emblem of his illustrious origin, preferring the humility of 
the cloister to the splendour of a crown. His pious self- 
abnegation received its reward even in this world. The 
village of Nogent took the name of its patron who was 
included in the list of saints : history has connected the 
name of Saint-Cloud with events that fill the universe. 
Here Henri HI. fell beneath the blade of an assassin, and 
with him the Valois branch ended. Here suddenly died, 
not without suspicions of poison, the witty and brilliant 
Henrietta of England, wife of Louis the Fourteenth's 
brother. In this same spot Marie Antoinette was pre- 
paring the most charming of royal residences when the 
Revolution came to drag her to the scaffold. Here the 
Revolution of Brumaire XVHI. overturned the French 
republic. In 1815, the foreigners, with Wellington and 
Bliicher at their head, are at Saint-Cloud, where the 



246 



THE PALACE OF SAINT-CLOUD 



capitulation of Paris is signed on July 30!. Here, on July 
28th, 1830, Charles X. signs the fatal orders which are 
immediately followed by a new revolution. This prince 
leaves Saint-Cloud on July 30th, at 3 a. m., to go into 
exile where he is to find his tomb. 

The purity of the air, the abundance of water, the 
freshness of the landscape and the beauty of the banks of 
the Seine have always attracted the dwellers of Paris to 
Saint-Cloud. Nobles of the court, members of the par- 
liament and men of finance built elegant country houses 
here. The masses, following a tradition which has not yet 
disappeared, went out there to take breath at liberty, to 
stroll about in the shade and to play their gambols. 

It must be confessed that at the gates of Paris one could 
not find a more agreeable promenade nor a more attractive 
dwelling-place. Consequently, at the period of our inter- 
nescine wars, the possession of it was bitterly wanted. In 
1346 Saint-Cloud was revisited by the English, and its inhabit- 
ants were so fortunate as to drive them off. But in 1358, 
after the fatal battle of Poitiers, the English took the place and 
pillaged and reduced it to ashes without sparing the pleasure- 
houses established in the vicinity. Under the reign of the 
unfortunate Charles VI., the Armagnacs and Bourguignons 
alternately fell upon the village and ravaged the country 
side. These multiplied disasters were promptly repaired 
and the hills of Saint-Cloud again adorned themselves with 
elegant abodes framed in verdure. 

The house that served as the kernel of the roval castle 
of Saint-Cloud first belonged to Jerome Gonde. He was 



THE PALACE OF SAINT-CLOUD 



247 



an Italian who came to France in the suite of Catherine de' 
Medici. Like several of his fellow-countrymen, he suc- 
ceeded in amassing a considerable fortune here. More for- 
tunate than some of them, he kept in favour with the 
Queen Mother. It was in this house, August ist, 1589, 
that Henri III. was assassinated by Jacques Clement. De- 
voted servants saluted Henri IV. as King of France : he 
was at Saint-Cloud in the Tillet house. This house, the 
witness of the accession to the throne of the Bourbon line, 
has since disappeared : its site is marked in the gardens of 
the castle by the Tillet alley. 

The grandson of Henri IV., so passionate for the 
grandeur of his house, bought Saint-Cloud for Philip of 
Orleans, his brother, generally called Monsieur. Various 
acquisitions were successively made to complete this beau- 
tiful demesne : the castle was rebuilt by Lepautre, and the 
gardens laid out by Le Notre. Saint-Cloud for along time 
remained the favourite residence of the Dukes of Orleans. 
Henrietta of England with her gay spirit, her beautiful 
manners, her love of fetes^ her taste for pomp, her engaging 
character, her discreet advances, and the friendship shown 
for her by her brother-in-law, rendered it the most elegant 
abode, the centre of the most select gatherings, and the 
palace of decent and delicate pleasures. 

Alas ! these brilliant entertainments of fashion were very 
soon to be interrupted by a terrible blow which fell sud- 
denly like a clap of thunder. Henrietta returned from 
England whither she had been, charged by Louis XIV. 
with the negotiation of a secret treaty with her brother, 



248 



THE PALACE OF SAINT-CLOUD 



Charles 11. Arriving in the beginning of June, 1670, she 
was quietly resting at Saint-Cloud, when, on the twenty- 
ninth of the same month, suddenly in the castle in 
the middle of the night the terrible cry was heard : 
" Madame is dying ! " and, eight hours later : " Madame is 
dead ! " This princess was twenty-six years old. The 
disease declared itself by frightful agony the moment after 
drinking a glass of chicory water. At first she declared 
that she had been poisoned ; if she retracted this afterwards, 
it was under the apprehension of the terrible consequences 
that a false declaration might entail. Her suspicions have 
been shared by historians, who briefly add that Louis XIV. 
was happy to learn that his brother was innocent of this crime. 

Monsieur showed his grief by grand funeral ceremonies. 
What makes the memory of these obsequies notable is the 
funeral oration delivered by Bossuet. It is one of the 
masterpieces of pulpit eloquence. 

The tears, feigned or genuine, were scarcely dry before 
they began to think of filling the place left empty by death. 
The King made overtures on this subject to Mademoiselle, 
daughter of Gaston of Orleans, the brother of Louis XIII.; 
but this princess at that time was occupied with a project 
that became the torment of her life ; she wanted to marry 
the Comte de Lauzun. 

Four months after the death of the gentle and witty 
Henrietta of England, Monsieur married the Princess Pala- 
tine, the daughter of the Elector Palatine. A robust Ger- 
man with strongly marked features, an enemy to ceremony, 
detesting entertainments on account of impatience with con- 



THE PALACE OF SAINT-CLOUD 



249 



straint, holding the toilette in aversion because it interfered 
with her usual habits, the Princess Palatine formed a com- 
plete contrast to the lively and delicate Henrietta. She ab- 
jured Lutheranism on the eve of her marriage. From this 
we may judge of the changes that followed at first in the 
customs of the castle of Saint-Cloud. But they did not 
last long. Philip of Orleans loved to hold a court and he 
was anxious to see it constantly filled with people who 
could amuse themselves. High play occurred there and 
many ladies came, who, says Saint , Simon, " would scarcely 
have been received elsewhere." At Saint-Cloud, as at the 
Palais Royale, there was an uninterrupted succession of en- 
tertainments. Madame often sulked at the company. She 
spent the greatest part of the day in her cabinet. Her hus- 
band allowed her every liberty and freely used his own, 
without concerning himself about her in any way. 

In 1701, Philip of Orleans, the King's brother, died at 
Saint-Cloud. The Princess Palatine also breathed her last 
gasp there. This magnificent residence continued to be 
occupied with the same sumptuousness and luxury by the 
new owners ; these were the Duke of Chartres who, on his 
father's death, took the title of Duke of Orleans, and his 
wife, Mile, de Blois, daughter of Louis XIV. This prin- 
cess wanted to hold a court there that would do sufficient 
honour to the first prince of the blood. The King ap- 
proved, provided that she took care to gather together a 
distinguished company free from the confused and objec- 
tionable mixture that had defiled the society of the late 
Duke of Orleans. The beginnings of this new court were 



250 



THE PALACE OF SAINT-CLOUD 



admirable. Families of the best positions in the realm 
crowded into the receptions at Saint-Cloud. The drawing- 
rooms and gardens were filled with personages belonging to 
the most illustrious houses. Since Louis XIV. was old 
and Versailles did not always afford much pleasure, the 
young generation gladly turned to Saint-Cloud where polite- 
ness, liberality, magnificence, fine manners and an amiable 
freedom attracted and held everybody. 

In 1752, Louis Philippe of Orleans, grandson of the Re- 
gent, gave a splendid y?/^ at Saint-Cloud, a detailed descrip- 
tion of which was given by the writers of the time with 
great gusto. It was remarked that the populace was ad- 
mitted to take part in it. This remark, which was dwelt 
on with a kind of affectation, shows the influence of new 
ideas. In 1759, this prince lost his wife, Louise Henrlette 
de Bourbon Conti, and in 1773 he secretly married the 
Marquise de Montesson. The latter, desiring a modest 
abode, induced the Duke of Orleans to sell the castle of 
Saint-Cloud. In 1785, this beautiful residence was pur- 
chased by Queen Marie Antoinette for six millions. By 
the Queen's orders numerous changes were made. The 
new chapel was built at that time, and on the site of the 
old one a staircase of honour was built, leading to the grand 
apartments. Considerable additions were made to the 
buildings by doubling two bodies of outbuildings. The 
works were carried forward rapidly ; but events were march- 
ing still faster ; they were not yet completed when the Rev- 
olution burst. The palace was abandoned ; the gardens 
were reserved for the pleasure of the citizens. 



THE PALACE OF SAINT-CLOUD 



251 



A great political event was soon to happen at Saint- 
Cloud. After horrible and sterile agitation like that of a 
tempest, the Directory, far from healing France of the ex- 
cesses of anarchy, was impotent, and its weakness, not less 
than the light conduct of the Directors, caused it to fall 
into discredit. All was ready for a new revolution, and it 
came on the i8th of Brumaire (Nov. 9th, 1799). The 
legislative body had been transferred to the castle of Saint- 
Cloud. The victor of Lodi and Areola, having recently 
returned from Egypt, was ripe for new destinies. Sur- 
rounded by a crowd of superior officers determined to put 
an end to the government of lawyers^ it was necessary to act. 
So he went to Saint-Cloud after having taken his measures 
in Paris. ... At the sight of the grenadiers advanc- 
ing with fixed bayonets, the terrified members of the coun- 
cil dispersed in flight through the passages, or jumping out 
of the windows. A new era was about to open ; Napo- 
leon Bonaparte is nominated First Consul, Consul for ten 
years. Consul for life, and lastly, Emperor. 

From the year 1800, the royal residences had been placed 
at the disposal of the new representative of sovereign 
authority in France, and he chose the castle of Saint-Cloud 
for his summer residence. It was here that he received the 
decree that proclaimed him Emperor of the French. Napo- 
leon often came here for repose after his victories. Here, 
in quiet, he planned new conquests, and more especially he 
elaborated those regulations of public administration that, 
together with the code that bears his name, perhaps con- 
stitute his best title to glory in the eyes of posterity. 



252 



THE PALACE OF SAINT-CLOUD 



In 18 10, on April ist, the marriage of Napoleon with 
Marie Louise was celebrated in the chapel of Saint-Cloud, 
The castle and gardens then witnessed rejoicings that 
seemed as if they could never be saddened by any cloud. 
In 1815, alas! the scene has greatly changed. Saint Cloud 
is invaded by a horde of foreigners. The conqueror wants 
to dishonour the palace of the hero whom Fortune has be- 
trayed. Troops are encamped in the gardens ; horses are 
watered in the park fountains. Nothing is respected, not even 
the private chamber of the Empress. A pack of hounds is put 
there ; the furniture is soiled and torn books litter the floor. 
A soldier sleeps in his uniform in Napoleon's bed and amuses 
himself with tearing the imperial draperies with his spurs. 
Those were days of mourning for Saint-Cloud and for 
France ! The capitulation of Paris was signed at Saint- 
Cloud, July 3d, 18 13. 

Fifteen years later, also in the month of July, another 
revolution chased Charles X. from Saint-Cloud. It was 
here that that prince signed the orders of July 24, 1830. 
Six days later, the royal family of Bourbon was on the road 
of exile! The government of the Restoration had various 
embellishments done to the palace and gardens of Saint- 
Cloud. We owe to Charles X. the construction of 
the building for the accommodation of the servants 
of his establishment, as well as a fine barracks, situ- 
ated in the gardens of the lower park, for his body- 
guard. 

Louis Philippe did not forget Saint-Cloud which recalled 
youthful memories. The apartments were renovated and 



THE PALACE OF SAINT-CLOUD 



253 



richly furnished, and new distributions still further im- 
proved this beautiful residence. 

Notwithstanding the considerable works undertaken at 
different periods, it was easy to recognize the modern 
works from the ancient parts. The front on the court of 
honour was executed after the plans of Gerard ; the two 
pavilions were by the architect Lepautre. The apartments 
of Napoleon III. and the Empress were situated on the 
first story in the left wing. Queen Marie Antoinette, the 
Empress Marie Louise and the Duchess of Angouleme 
occupied this part of the castle. The Apollo Gallery, in- 
augurated by a splendid fete given by Philip of Orleans to 
his brother, Louis XIV., was on the first story of the right 
wing. Under the Directory, this gallery was used for the 
sittings of the council of the Anciens. The emperor's vesti- 
bule was in the centre of the facade, with the staircase 
built on the site of the old chapel. The internal decora- 
tion of the palace was of the greatest magnificence ; the 
paintings on the ceilings were by illustrious artists, and the 
furniture, renewed several times, was of rare elegance and 
dazzling richness. 

The heir of Napoleon I. was soon to reappear there : it 
was at Saint-Cloud, Dec. 2, 1852, that the Empire was 
restored. 

The palace of Saint-Cloud was burnt during the siege 
of Paris by the German army in 1870-187 1. 



STIRLING CASTLE 

NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 

WE passed through the outer rampart of Queen 
Anne ; through the old round gate-tower of an 
earher day, and beneath the vacant arch where the portcul- 
lis used to fall, thus reaching the inner region, where stand 
the old palace on one side and the old Parliament House on 
the other. The former looks aged, ragged and rusty, but 
makes a good appearance enough pictorially, being adorned 
all round about with statues, which may have been white 
marble once, but are as grey as weather-beaten granite now, 
and look down from beneath the windows above the base- 
ment story. A photograph would give the idea of very 
rich antiquity, but as it really stands, looking on a gravelled 
courtyard, and with " Canteen " painted on one of its 
doors, the spectator does not find it very impressive. The 
great hall of this palace is now partitioned off into two or 
three rooms, and the whole edifice is arranged to serve as 
barracks. Of course, no trace of ancient magnificence, if 
anywise destructible, can be left in the interior. We were 
not shown into this palace, nor into the Parliament House, 
nor into the tower, where King James stabbed the Earl of 
Douglas. When I was here a year ago, I went up the old 
staircase and into the room where the murder was com- 
mitted, although it had recently been the scene of a fire 



STIRLING CASTI.E 



255 



which consumed as much of it as was inflammable. The 
window whence the Earl's body was thrown then remained ; 
but now the whole tower seems to have been removed, 
leaving only the mullions of the historic window. 

We merely looked up at the new, light-coloured free- 
stone of the restored tower in passing, and ascended to the 
ramparts, where we found one of the most splendid views, 
morally and materially, that this world can show. Indeed, 
I think there cannot be such a landscape as the Carse of 
Stirling, set in such a frame as it is, — the Highlands, com- 
prehending our friends Ben Lomond, Ben Venue, Ben An, 
and the whole Ben brotherhood, with the Grampians sur- 
rounding it to the westward and northward, and in other 
directions some range of prominent objects to shut it in ; 
and the plain itself, so worthy of the richest setting, so 
fertile, so beautiful, so written over and over again with 
histories. The silver Links of Forth are as sweet and 
gently picturesque an object as a man sees in a lifetime. 
I do not wonder that Providence caused great things to 
happen on this plain; it was like choosing a good piece of 
canvas to paint a great picture upon. The battle of Ban- 
nockburn (which we saw beneath us, with the Gillie's Hill 
on the right) could not have been fought upon a meaner 
plain, nor Wallace's victory gained ; and if any other great 
historic act still remains to be done in this country, I 
should imagine the Carse of Stirling to be the future scene 
of it. Scott seems to me hardly to have done justice to 
this landscape, or to have bestowed pains enough to put it 
in strong relief before the world ; although it is from the 



256 



STIRLING CASTLE 



lights shed on it, and so much other Scottish scenery, by 
his mind, that we chiefly see it and taice an interest in it. 

I do not remember seeing the hill of execution before, — 
a mound on the same level as the castle's base, looking 
towards the Highlands. A solitary cow was now feeding 
upon it. I should imagine that no person could ever have 
been unjustly executed there ; the spot is too much in the 
sight of heaven and earth to countenance injustice. 

Descending from the ramparts, we went into the 
Armoury, which I did not see on my former visit. The 
superintendent of this department is an old soldier of very 
great intelligence and vast communicativeness, and quite 
absorbed in thinking of and handling weapons ; for he is a 
practical armourer. He had a few things to show us that 
were very interesting, — a helmet or two, a bomb and 
grenade from the Crimea ; also some muskets from the 
same quarter, one of which, with a sword at the end, he 
spoke of admiringly, as the best weapon in the collection, 
its only fault being its extreme weight. He showed us, 
too, some Minie rifles, and whole ranges of the old-fashioned 
Brown Bess, which had helped to win Wellington's 
victories ; also the halberts of sergeants, now laid aside, 
and some swords that had been used at the battle of 
Sheriffmuir. These latter were very short, not reaching to 
the floor, when I held one of them point downward, in my 
hand. The shortness of the blade and consequent closeness 
of the encounter, must have given the weapon a most 
dagger-like murderousness. Hanging in the hall of arms, 
there were two tattered banners that had gone through the 



STIRLING CASTLE 



257 



Peninsular battles, one of them belonged to the gallant 
42d Regiment. The armourer gave my wife a rag from 
each of these banners, consecrated by so much battle 
smoke ; also a piece of old oak, half-burned to charcoal, 
which had been rescued from the panelling of the Douglas 
Tower. We saw better things, moreover, than all these 
rusty weapons and ragged flags ; namely, the pulpit and 
communion-table of John Knox. The frame of the 
former, if I remember aright, is complete ; but one or two 
of the panels are knocked out and lost, and, on the whole, 
it looks as if it had been shaken to pieces by the thunder of 
his holdings forth, — much worm-eaten, too, is the old oak 
wood, as well it may be, for the letters MD (1500) are 
carved on its front. The communion table is polished, 
and in much better preservation. 

Then the armourer showed us a Damascus blade, of the 
kind that will cut a delicate silk handkerchief while floating- 
in the air ; and some inlaid match-lock guns. A child's 
little toy-gun was lying on a work-bench among all this 
array of weapons ; and when I took it up and smiled, he 
said it was his son's. So he called in a little fellow of four 
years old, who was playing in the castle yard, and made 
him go through the musketry exercise which he did with 
great good-will. This small Son of a Gun, the father 
assured us, cares for nothing but arms, and has attained all 
his skill with the musket merely by looking at the soldiers 
on parade. 

Our soldier, who had resigned the care of us to the 
armourer, met us again at the door, and led us round the 



258 



STIRLING CASTLE 



remainder of the ramparts, dismissing us finally at the gate 
by which we entered. All the time we were in the castle, 
there had been a great discordance of drums and fifes, 
caused by the musicians who were practicing just under the 
walls ; likewise the sergeants were drilling their squads of 
men, and putting them through strange gymnastic motions. 
Most, if not all, of the garrison belongs to a Highland 
regiment, and those whom we saw on duty in full costume 
looked very martial and gallant. Emerging from the Castle, 
we took the broad and pleasant footpath, which circles it 
about midway on the grassy steep which descends from the 
rocky precipice on which the walls are built. This is a 
very beautiful walk, and affords a most striking view of the 
Castle, right above our heads, the height of its wall forming 
one line with the precipice. The grassy hillside is almost 
as precipitous as the dark grey rock that rises out of it, to 
form the foundations of the Castle ; but wild rose-bushes, 
both of a white and red variety, are abundant here, and all 
in bloom ; nor are these the only flowers. There is also 
shrubbery in some spots, tossing up green waves against the 
precipice; and broad sheets of ivy here and there mantle 
the head-long rock, which also has a growth of weeds in 
its crevices. The Castle walls above, however, are quite 
bare of any such growth. Thus, looking up at the old storied 
fortress, and looking down over the wide, historic plain, we 
wandered half-way round the Castle, and then, retracing 
our steps, entered the town close by an old hospital. 



THE PALACE OF THE BOSPHORUS 

THEOPHILE GAUTIER 

WHEN in your caique upon the Bosphorus you have 
passed the Tower of Leander,^ you see opposite 
Scutari an immense, unfinished palace that bathes its white 
feet in the blue and rapid waters. There is a superstition 
in the East, supported by the architects, that no one dies 
while the house he is having built is uncompleted ; there- 
fore the Sultans always take care to have some palace on 
hand. 

As a rare instance among the Turks, who consecrate 
solid and precious materials to the house of God and erect 
for the transitory habitation of man only wooden kiosks 
hardly more enduring than himself, this palace is all of 
marble and built for eternity. It is composed of one great 
body and two wings. To say to what order of architecture 
it belongs would be difficult ; it is not Greek, nor Roman, 
nor Gothic, nor Renaissance, nor Saracen, nor Arab, nor 
Turkish ; it approaches that style which the Spaniards call 
plateresco^ and which makes the facade of a building re- 
semble a great piece of goldsmith's work owing to the com- 
plicated wealth of its ornaments and the maddening mass 
of the details. 

1 The Maiden's Tower. 



26o THE PALACE OF THE BOSPHORUS 

Windows with open-work balconies, small enwreathed 
columns, ribbed trefoils, festooned frames, and intervening 
spaces crowded with sculpture and arabesques, recall the 
Lombard style and make you think of the ancient palaces 
of Venice ; only there is the same difference between the 
Palace Dario or Casa d'oro and the Sultan's Palace as be- 
tween the Grand Canal and the Bosphorus. 

This enormous building of Marmora marble, of a bluish 
white that seems a little cold owing to the sharp glitter from 
its newness, produces a very majestic effect between 
the blue of the sky and the blue of the sea ; it will produce 
a better one when the warm sun of Asia shall have gilded 
it with its rays which are received direct and at first- 
hand. Vignola, doubtless, would not know what to make 
of this hybrid facade where the styles of all periods and all 
countries form a composite order which he did not foresee. 
But one cannot deny that this multitude of flowers, foliage, 
and rose-work, carved like jewels of precious material pos- 
sesses a tufted and complicated appearance, gorgeous and 
delightful to the eye. It is a palace that might have been 
made by an ornament-worker who was not an architect, 
and who spared neither the work of his hands, nor time, 
nor money. Such as it is, I prefer it to those horrid, clas- 
sic reproductions, so beastly, so flat, so cold and so tire- 
some, such as are built by pedants and those who like to be 
conventional, and I greatly prefer these gay, ornamental 
masses of foliage interlacing with fantastic elegance, to a 
triangular pediment or a horizontal attic, resting on six or 
eight lean columns. 




I 



THE PALACE OF THE BOSPHORUS 26 1 

This naive ignorance displayed upon so gigantic a scale 
has its charm ; it is probable that the bold builders of our 
cathedrals knew little more, and their works are not the less 
admirable for that. 

Along the whole length of the palace, there runs a plat- 
form, bordered on the side of the Bosphorus with monu- 
mental pillars linked together by grilles of beautiful and 
charming wrought-iron, where the iron curves in a thousand 
flowered arabesques, resembling the flourishes of a bold pen 
sweeping the paper. These gilded grilles form an extremely 
rich balustrade. 

The two wings, built at a different period, are very much 
too low for the body of the principal dwelling, with which 
they have, moreover, no harmony of style or form. Imag- 
ine a double row of Odeons or Chambers of Deputies in 
miniature, following each other in wearisome alternation 
and presenting to the eye a line of slender little columns 
that seem to be of wood, although they are of marble. 

In passing and repassing before this palace, the desire to 
visit it had come to me many times. In Italy nothing 
would have been simpler; but to bring your caique to 
an imperial landing-place in Turkey, would be a grave 
performance that might bring serious consequences. Hap- 
pily, through the agency of a friend, I was put into com- 
munication with the architect, M. Balyan, a young 
Armenian of great intelligence, and who spoke French. 

M. Balyan had the kindness to take me in his boat of 
three pairs of oars, and made me enter first an old kiosk, a 
remnant of the former palace, where we were served with 



262 THE PALACE OF THE BOSPHORUS 

pipes, coffee, and sherbet flavoured with rose ; then he con- 
ducted me himself through the apartments with a kindness 
and charming politeness for which I thank him here, hoping 
that one day his eye will fall upon these lines. 

The interior has not been entirely finished yet, but, never- 
theless, you can get an idea of the future splendour of the 
whole. The religious ideas of the Turks debar from 
their ornamentation a host of happy motives and re- 
strict considerably the fancy of the artist, who must care- 
fully abstain from mingling with his arabesques the repre- 
sentation of any living objects : — thus, there are no statues, 
no bas-reliefs, no masks, no chimaeras, no griffins, no 
dolphins, no birds, no sphinxes, no serpents, no butterflies, 
no little figures half-woman and half-flower, no heraldic 
monsters, and none of those strange creatures that compose 
the fabulous zoology of ornamentation, and of which 
Raphael has made such marvellous use in the galleries of the 
Vatican. 

The Arabian style, with its interruptions, distortions and 
its broken lines, its lace of stucco cut out with a punch, its 
ceilings of stalactites, its bee-hive niches, its marble perforated 
like the lid of a perfume-box, its mottos in florid Cufic, and 
its colourings of green, white and red, discretely enhanced 
with gold, would have afforded natural resources for the deco- 
ration of an oriental palace ; but the Sultan, with the same 
caprice that makes us build Alhambras in Paris, wished to 
have a palace in the modern taste. One is astonished at 
first at his caprice, but, upon reflection, nothing is more 
natural. Having so few motives at his disposition, M. Bal- 



THE PALACE OF THE BOSPHORUS 



263 



yan has needed a rare fertility of imagination in order to 
decorate in different ways more than three hundred halls or 
chambers. 

The general arrangement is very simple : the rooms fol- 
low each other in succession, or open upon a large corridor ; 
the harem, among others, is so arranged. The apartment 
of each woman opens by a single door into a vast passage, 
like the cells of nuns in a cloister. At each end, a guard 
of eunuchs, or bostangis^ can be posted. From the threshold, 
I threw a glance over this retreat of secret pleasure, which 
resembles a convent or a boarding-school much more than 
one would imagine. Here are extinguished, without having 
shone upon the outside world, the stars of beauty unknown, 
but the eye of the master has rested upon them, for one 
minute perhaps, and that is enough. 

The apartment of the Sultana- Valide, composed of lofty 
rooms looking upon the Bosphorus, is remarkable for its 
ceilings painted in fresco with an incomparable elegance 
and freshness. I do not know who are the workmen that 
made these marvels, but Diaz would not find upon his 
palette finer, more vaporous, more tender and, at the same 
time, richer tones. Sometimes they are skies of turquoise 
sown with light clouds floating in incredible depths, some- 
times immense lace veils of marvellous figures, then a 
great shell of mother-of-pearl irised with all the hues 
of the prism, or still again of imaginary flowers hanging 
their corollas and leaves upon golden trellises ; other 
chambers are similarly ornamented ; sometimes a casket 
whose jewels are scattered about in playful disorder, neck- 



264 



THE PALACE OF THE BOSPHORUS 



laces whose pearls have broken from their strings and 
roll about like rain-drops, a rillet of diamonds, sapphires and 
rubies forming the motif of the decoration ; golden boxes 
painted upon the cornices allow the bluish smoke of per- 
fumes to escape and compose a ceiling with their transparent 
haze. Here Phingari through a rift in the cloud shows his 
silver crescent, so dear to the Mussulman; there modest 
Aurora colours a morning sky with rose, like the cheeks 
of virgin ; farther away a large piece of brocade streaked 
with light glittering like cloth of gold, and held up 
by a clasp of carbuncles, reveals a corner of blue. Ara- 
besques with infinite interlacings, sculptured compartments, 
golden rose-work, and bouquets of imaginary or real flowers, 
blue lilies of Iran, or roses of Schiraz, come to vary these 
themes, the chief of which I have cited, without attempting 
to enter into impossible details, and which the imagination 
of the reader must supplement. 

The Sultan's apartments are in the style of Louis XIV. 
Orientalized, where one feels an intentional imitation of the 
splendours of Versailles, the doors, the windows, and their 
frames are of cedar, mahogany, massive violet-ebony, ex- 
quisitely carved, and fastening by rich bolts gilded in 
ormoulu. From the windows you have the most marvellous 
view in the world : a panorama without a rival, and such as 
never sovereign had before in front of his palace. The 
coast of Asia, where upon an immense curtain of black 
cypress Scutari stands out, with its picturesque landing-place 
crowded with vessels, its pink houses, its white mosques 
among which are distinguished Buyuck-Djami and Sultan- 



THE PALACE OF THE BOSPHORUS 265 

Selim ; and the Bosphorus with its rapid and transparent 
waters furrowed with the perpetual going and coming of 
the sailing-vessels, steam-boats, feluccas, prames, boats 
from Ismid and Trebizond, with antique shapes, peculiar 
sails, canoes, and caiques, above which fly the familiar 
swarms of sea-mews and gulls. If you lean out a little, you 
can discern upon the two shores a succession of summer 
homes and kiosks, painted in flesh colours that form a 
double key of palaces for this marvellous marine river. 
Add to this the thousand accidents of lights, the effects of 
sun and moon, and you will have a spectacle which imagi- 
nation could not surpass. 

One of the peculiarities of the palace is a large hall 
roofed with a dome of red glass. When the sun shines 
through this dome of rubies, everything assumes strange 
hues; the air seems to be in flames, and you seem to 
breathe fire ; the columns seem like torch-lights, the marble 
pavement reddens into a floor of lava; a pink fire devours 
the walls ; you fancy yourself in the reception-hall of a 
palace of salamanders built of metal in fusion ; your eyes 
glitter like red spangles and your clothes become vestments 
of purple. An operatic hell, lighted with Bengal fire, can 
alone give an idea of this peculiar effect, of a questionable 
taste, perhaps, but very striking, nevertheless. 

A little marvel which would not mar the most fairy-like 
architecture of the Thousand and One Nights, is the 
Sultan's hall of baths. It is in the Moorish style, of veined 
Egyptian alabaster, and seems to have been cut out of one 
block of precious stone, with its columns, its splayed cap- 



266 THE PALACE OF THE BOSPHORUS 

itals, its heart-shaped arcades, and its ceiling constellated 
with crystal eyes that shine like diamonds. To what luxury 
might the body abandon itself upon these flags, transparent 
as agates, surrendering its flexible limbs to the skilful 
manipulations of the tellacks in the midst of a cloud of 
perfumed vapour and under a shower of rose-water and 
balsam ! 

Tired of these marvels and fatigued with admiration, I 
thanked M. Balyan, who made me come out through the 
court of honour, the gate of which is a kind of triumphal 
arch of white marble of a very rich and florid ornamenta- 
tion, and which forms on the land side an entrance 
quite worthy of this sumptuous palace. Then, as I was 
dying of hunger, I went into a fruiterer's^ shop and was 
served with two hrochettes of kabohs^ wrapped in a thick 
pancake, which I moistened with a glass of sherbet, — a 
very sober and entirely local repast. 



PLESSIS-LES-TOURS 

J. J. BOURRASSEE 

THE castle of Plessis stands to the west of the city of 
Tours in a vast plain watered by the Loire and Cher. 
To reach it, you follow a road bordered with old mulberry- 
trees, the remains or heirs of those planted by Henri IV. in 
1607, and renewed in 1690 by Louvois. Impressed by the 
terrible memories of Louis XL, turn not your head towards 
those trees to look for those hanged by Messire Tristan 
L'Hermite. ■Neither be afraid of finding beneath your feet 
those man-traps that were planted in the vicinity of the 
Castle to catch the curious and the rustics who ventured 
upon the lands of His Majesty. To-day the country is 
safe and there is nothing to be feared from the Castle, even 
if it is not attractive ; but, in the Fifteenth Century, a safe- 
conduct and an experienced guide were necessary for 
crossing this dangerous region. 

Plessis did not play any part in our national history until 
the reign of Louis XL Until then, it was only an obscure 
lordship with a little castle on one of those rocky hillocks 
that still exist in the vale. This spot pleasing him much 
more than the castles of Amboise, Loches, or Chinon, the 
King bought it from his chamberlain, Hardouin de Maille, 
in 1463, for the sum of 5,500 gold crowns, and abolished its 



268 PLESSIS-LES-TOURS 

old name of Montils. Here he built a castle in the 
Fifteenth-Century taste, simple and even severe, for brick 
largely figured in it, and vv^ith a glass gallery on the interior 
facade : a dwelling more vi^orthy of a rich citizen than a 
King of France. Here, after his accession, Louis XI. 
spent the greater part of his life. 

Towards the end of the year 1464, the King gathered 
together the prelates and principal lords of the realm at 
Plessis with the pretext of seeking their advice as to the 
means of remedying the discontent that was beginning to 
break out. In this assembly, Charles, Duke of Orleans, 
thought it his duty to hazard a few remonstrances ; but 
Louis XI. replied to the duke in such harsh and offensive 
language that the unfortunate prince died of chagrin at 
Amboise a few days later. This attitude of the King drew 
the nobles into the League of Public Welfare, and the Duke 
of Berri placed himself at the head of the discontented. In 
order to try to calm them, the King was obliged to call 
together the States-General at Tours in 1468. 

The opposition of the nobles drove Louis XL towards 
the middle classes, not that he had the least democratic 
tendencies, but because he felt more at ease among these 
small people, whose situation rendered them supple and 
easy. He always liked to have them about him, and 
raised them to the highest dignities, in hatred and defiance 
of the high nobility, because they were broken into the 
practice of affairs by commerce, and possessed the art, 
always prized by governments, of managing the finances 
skilfully and creating resources at critical moments. His 



PLESSIS-LES-TOURS 269 

selections were not always happy : witness La Balue, whom 
from a simple clerk he raised to the rank of bishop and 
even cardinal, and who betrayed him to the profit of the 
Duke of Burgundy. Louis XL, carrying a certain refine- 
ment of cruelty even into his most legitimate vengeance, 
had the cardinal confined in an iron cage. It is said that 
this odious invention was due to La Balue himself, and that 
he was the first on whom it was tried. After languishing 
for some time in one of the cells at Plessis, the cardinal 
was transferred to Loches and then to Montbazon : he did 
not recover his liberty till 1480, after a long and hard 
captivity. 

Notwithstanding the success of his policy, Louis XL had 
a sad and morose old age. Separated from his wife and 
son, more suspicious of everybody than ever, he shut him- 
self up closely at Plessis and there redoubled his minute 
precautions. But two terrible guests whom the " guard 
that keeps watch at the barriers of the Louvre" can never 
stop, disease and death, soon came to seek him. When he 
felt the first pangs of the disease that was to carry him off, 
he multiplied his vows, acts of devotion and pilgrimages. 
Then he sent and fetched all the way from Calabria a poor 
hermit named Francisco Paolo, with the hope that the holy 
man's prayers would obtain his recovery. As soon as the 
King was informed of his arrival, he ordered the Dauphin 
to go to meet him with the chief lords of the court and to 
receive him with all the respect due to so saintly a person- 
age ; he himself did not think he could do the saint too 
much honour and lodged him with his companions in the 



270 



PLESSIS-LES-TOURS 



castle ; but dwelling in the court ill suited the pious hermit 
and so they gave him a lodging in the Plessis courtyard. 
So many precautions and so many prayers failed to bend 
Heaven ; even the holy ampulla was powerless. Louis XI. 
died at the Castle of Plessis, August 30th, 1483, aged sixty, 
after reigning twenty-two years. His body was first taken 
from Plessis to the church of St. Martin of Tours, where it 
lay in state for eight days ; then it was taken to Notre 
Dame de Clery, the spot which he himself had chosen for 
his burial. St. Francis had not been able to perform the 
miracle of curing the King ; but he had prepared him for 
his approaching death, and it must be acknowledged that 
with a man like Louis XL this was no small prodigy. 

On the death of Louis XL the court was installed at 
Plessis for some time. The Dauphin Charles, born at the 
Castle of Amboise in 1470, had reached his legal majority ; 
but intelligence was very slightly developed in this puny 
and deformed child. His sister, Anne de Beaujeu, " fine 
and subtle, if any one ever was," says Brantome, " and the 
very image of her father in everything," unhesitatingly 
took the regency, and, to resist the malcontents who wanted 
to deprive her of it, she convoked the States-General at 
Tours for January ist, 1484. This celebrated assembly 
gave firm and vigilant attention to all the affairs of the 
realm and obtained quite a sensible reduction of taxes. 

Amid the shock of intrigues and diverse ambitions, the 
lady of Beaujeu conducted herself with so much address 
and prudence, that the States confirmed the last wishes of 
Louis XL in her favour. 



PLESSIS-LES-TOURS 



271 



The little King, as he was called, was not long in shak- 
ing off his sister's yoke, and began his reign with an act of 
magnanimity by himself going in despite of his council and 
breaking the chains of the Duke of Orleans. Since the bat- 
tle of Saint-Aubin-du Cormier, that prince had been con- 
fined in the great tower of Bourges. One evening with a 
small suite the young King set out, or rather fled, from the 
Castle of Plessis under the pretext of a hunting-party, and 
went to free his prisoner. The Regent thought that Charles 
VIII. was going to return at the head of her enemies to 
proscribe her in turn. Happily she was mistaken. The 
reconciliation took place at Plessis, and from that day 
Louis of Orleans became the most faithful subject of his 
King. 

The Castle of Plessis was a fortunate place for the Duke 
of Orleans. After the death of Charles VIII., he was pro- 
claimed King under the title of Louis XII. and visited 
Touraine several times and stayed at the castle where his 
reconciliation with Anne de Beaujeu had been effected. 
There he convoked the States General in 1506, and the 
opening of this assembly took place in the great hall of 
Plessis on the fourteenth of May. The purpose of this 
assembly was to free the King's word and by the interven- 
tion of the nation to break the treaty, impolitic as well as 
onerous to France, that had been signed at Lyons in 1503 
and by which Louis XII". had promised to give his daugh- 
ter Claude, then only seven years of age, in marriage to 
Charles of Luxembourg, who afterwards became the Em- 
peror Charles V. and to whom she was to take as a dowry 



272 



PLESSIS-LES-TOURS 



the duchies of Milan and Brittany and the county of Blois. 
It was a veritable dismemberment of France and the ruin 
of that wise policy which by the two marriages of the 
Duchess Anne with Charles VIII. and Louis XII. had se- 
cured Brittany to France. The States rose in force against 
the treaty and demanded the marriage of Francois of Valois, 
then twelve years old, with Claude of France. These 
wishes were favourably received, and Cardinal Georges 
d'Amboise proceeded to the ceremony of betrothal on the 
twentieth of May, in the great hall of Plessis. 

Beginning with Francis the First, the court made only 
rare appearances at Plessis : the more splendid castles of 
Chenonceaux, Amboise, Blois, Chambord, and Fontaine- 
bleau received the preference. Henry III., however, when 
tossed about by events, found himself there ; and when 
Paris embraced the cause of the League, he transferred his 
little court thither in 1589. Mayenne followed to attack 
him. The King of Navarre, who had recently signed a 
truce with Henry III., hastened to help him, and set his 
troops in battle array on the right bank of the Loire near 
Saint Cyr. Thence he sent to say that if His Majesty 
would deign to come as far as the faubourg, he would kiss 
His Majesty's hands and take his ordefs. Henry III., not 
thinking it wise to go, invited the King of Navarre to pass 
the Loire and come to visit him at Plessis. Some of the 
Huguenot captains feared a snare ; but the Bearnais, as 
loyal as he was brave, did not hesitate for a moment and 
set out accompanied by his nobles. The interview took 
place in the great alley of the park of Plessis, and the crowd 



PLESSIS-LES-TOURS 273 

was so great that the two kings, with outstretched arms, 
had great trouble to approach each other. At last, having 
embraced, they mutually exchanged evidences of the most 
sincere affection. This touching scene occurred amid the 
liveliest acclamations of the public, who saw in this rec- 
onciliation of the two princes the end of the evils of the 
civil war. The two kings afterwards held a two hours' 
council, and, when the King of Navarre departed, Henry 
III. accompanied him as far as the St. Anne bridge. 

This was the last memorable event that occurred at 
Plessis. Pre-occupied with the ever-increasing political 
importance of Paris, Henry IV. left Touraine for good, and 
transported his court to the capital, so as to be at hand to 
supervise and direct its movements. 

For a century and a half, the royal garden of Plessis, 
under the management of able gardeners, has been the 
most active and fruitful school of French horticulture. 
Here have been produced the "good Christian pear," the 
Queen Claude plum dedicated to the wife of Francis the 
First, and doubtless a host of other excellent fruits and 
charming flowers. In the Seventeenth Century, the 
gardens were abandoned, or transformed into mulberry nurs- 
eries : they no longer gave impulse to local horticulture, 
but they contributed in another way to the prosperity of 
the province. From 1744 to 1762, the Plessis nurseries 
distributed not less than four hundred thousand feet of 
mulberry trees in Touraine, and which gave a vigorous im- 
pulse to the silk industry. The castle underwent a new 
transformation in 1778, became a place of confine- 



274 



PLESSIS-LES-TOURS 



ment for vagrants. Finally, it was alienated in the Revo- 
lution and partly demolished. By the cruel irony of Fate, 
the terrible abode of Louis XI. has become a depot for 
fertilizers ! 



HAMPTON COURT PALACE 

ERNEST LAW 

AMONG the many places of interest that lie within 
easy reach of London, there is none, if we except 
Windsor Castle, that can be held to vie in historic and ar- 
tistic charms with the Queen's magnificent palace at Hamp- 
ton Court. 

Nowhere else do we meet with attractions so uncommon, 
and yet so varied, as those which are to be found within its 
precincts. There we may behold a building, which still re- 
mains, altered and restored though it has been, an almost 
perfect specimen of Tudor palatial architecture, side by 
side with the best example existing in England of the de- 
based classic of Louis XIV., namely Wren's State Apart- 
ments. There, too, we may feel, in a more than ordinary 
degree, amid its red-brick courts, solemn cloisters, pictur- 
esque gables, towers, turrets, embattled parapets, and mul- 
lioned and latticed windows, that indescribable charm 
which invests all ancient and historic places. While walk- 
ing through Wolsey's courts we may recall the splendour 
and wealth of the mighty Cardinal ; and while standing in 
Henry VIIL's chapel, or his gorgeous Gothic hall, ponder 
on the many thrilling events within the palace in the days 
of the Tudors and Stuarts — the birth of Edward VI. and the 
death of Jane Seymour ; the marriages of Catherine Howard 



276 



HAMPTON COURT PALACE 



and Catherine Parr; the honeymoons of Philip of Spain and 
Mary Tudor, and of Charles II. and Catherine of Braganza ; 
James I.'s conference with the Puritans ; and Cromwell's 
sojourn here in almost regal splendour. And while passing 
through William III.'s splendid suite of rooms, with their 
painted ceilings, carved cornices, tapestried and oak-panelled 
walls, we may mentally people them again with the kings 
and queens, and statesmen and courtiers, who thronged 
them in the last century. Moreover, by the aid of an un- 
broken series of historical pictures and portraits, illustrative 
of three centuries of English history, we may recall the 
past with a vividness that no books can ever excite. 

And then, when satiated with art and archaeology, we 
can relax the mind by wandering beneath the shade of 
Queen Anne's stately avenues of chestnut and lime ; stroll- 
ing in the ever delightful gardens where Wolsey paced in 
anxious meditation a few weeks before his fall ; where 
Henry VIII. made love to Anne Boleyn and to Catherine 
Howard ; along the paths where Queen Elizabeth took her 
daily morning walk ; past the tennis-court where Charles I. 
played his last game on the day he escaped from the palace ; 
beneath the bower where Queen Mary sat at needlework 
with her maids of honour; along the terrace to the bowl- 
ing-green and pavilions where George II. made love to 
Mrs. Howard and Mary Bellenden ; under the lime-groves 
which sheltered from the sun Pope and Hervey, Swift and 
Addison, Walpole and Bolingbroke. 

Yet, strange to say, though Hampton Court is so rich in 
historic associations, it has found no writer to investigate 



HAMPTON COURT PALACE 



277 



and chronicle its past. Any one curious as to its history 
must make researches for himself, or be content with the 
scanty and often misleading information supplied in old 
country histories and topographical works. 

In the same way its architecture, which is particularly 
characteristic of the Tudor period, and in many points 
most unique and instructive to the student of ancient man- 
ners, has to a great extent been overlooked in books where 
these topics are treated of. 

The whole domain, consisting now of about 1,900 
acres, has been divided, probably ever since Saxon times, 
into two parts by the highway from Kingston and Hampton 
Wick to Hampton, which passes in front of the garden 
gates, within 250 yards of the palace. To the north of 
this road lies Bushey Park, which, with its appurtenances, 
is fringed on its western, northern, and eastern sides by the 
districts of Hampton, Teddington, and Hampton Wick; 
while to the south of the Kingston road lies the House or 
Home Park, bounded on its three sides by the Thames and 
the palace, with its various subsidiary buildings, courtyards, 
gardens, and grounds. 

The natural features of the country in which Hampton 
Court is situated, are not particularly striking. The ground 
is flat, with scarcely an undulation rising more than twenty 
feet above the dead level, and the soil, though light and 
gravelly, supports very little indigenous timber. Indeed, in 
primeval times, the whole district of Hampton appears to 
have been an open track, forming part of the famous 
Hounslow Heath, to which it immediately adjoins ; and 



278 



HAMPTON COURT PALACE 



the thorns in Bushey Park, with a few ancient gigantic 
ehns and oaks in the Home Park, are the still surviving 
remnants or traces of its original state. One of the oaks, 
which is believed to be the largest in England, is as much 
as thirty -seven feet in girth at the waist; and there is a 
magnificent elm, of which the smallest girth is twenty-three 
feet, and which is known as "The Two Sisters," or "King 
Charles's Swing." 

Nevertheless, the surrounding prospect must, from the 
earliest times, have been not unpleasing. The stretch of 
the river opposite Hampton Court — studded with eyots,and 
bordered with luxuriant meadows fringed with willows — is 
one of the prettiest in the lower Thames ; and the stream, 
which is particularly clear and swift at this point, is always 
lively with boats and barges. When we add, that the view 
from the palace extends, across the river, over a wide ex- 
panse of 

** Meads forever crowned with flowers," 

clusters of trees, flowery hedgerows, and broad undulating 
heath-clad commons, — 

" To Claremont's terraced height and Esher's groves. 
By the soft windings of the silent Mole, " 

and that in the distance can be traced the dim blue outline 
of the Surrey hills ; while on another side appear the 
crowded gables and the picturesque old church-tower of 
Kingston, we have enumerated all the natural and local 
amenities of Hampton Court. 



HAMPTON COURT PALACE 



279 



Several motives probably w^eighed with Wolsey in fixing 
on Hampton Court as a residence. In the first place, he 
w^as in need of a secluded country place, within easy access 
of London, whither he could withdraw occasionally for rest 
and quiet, without being too far from the centre of affairs 
— as, he would certainly have been, had he retired to his 
diocesan palaces of York, Lincoln, or Durham. At the 
same time he was anxious to select a place where his health, 
which suffered much from the fogs and smoke of London, 
might be recruited in fresh and pure air. We may presume, 
too, that he was not regardless of the advantage at- 
taching to a site on the banks of the Thames, in days 
when, on account of the badness and danger of the roads, 
no route was so safe, convenient and expeditious as the 
" silent highway " of a river. Indeed it would take Wol- 
sey scarcely more time to be rowed down, by eight stout 
oarsmen from Hampton Court to the stairs of his palace at 
Whitehall, than it now takes one to go up to Waterloo 
Station by the South Western trains. 

Wolsey had no sooner entered into possession of Hamp- 
ton Court, than he began with characteristic energy to plan 
the erection of a vast and sumptuous edifice, commensu- 
rate with the dignity and wealth he had just attained to. He 
was then on the threshold of his career of greatness, and 
already receiving enormous revenues. 

The old manor-house already stood in the midst of an 
extensive domain of pasture land, consisting of some two 
thousand acres. All this he proceeded to convert into two 
parks, fencing them partly with paling, and partly enclos- 



28o HAMPTON COURT PALACE 

ing them with a stout red-brick buttressed wall, a great part 
of which remains to this day, and may be identified by its 
deep crimson colour, toned here and there with chequered 
lines of black, burnt bricks. There may be found, too, 
inserted in this wall of Wolsey's, in the Kingston road near 
the Paddock, a curious device of these black bricks, dis- 
posed in the form of a cross evidently an allusion to his 
ecclesiastical character ; and similar crosses may be observed 
on an old tower, standing near a piece of ground which 
was formerly the Cardinal's orchard, and on one of the tur- 
rets in the Clock Court. At the same time he surrounded 
the house and gardens with a great moat — a precaution 
which is noticeable as the mediaeval custom of so defend- 
ing dwelling-places had generally died out, since the 
Wars of the Roses, and Wolsey's moat here must have 
been one of the last made. It remained as a prominent 
feature in front of the palace till the time of William III., 
and traces of it still exist on the north side of the 
palace. 

His gardens, also, were to be an appanage in every way 
worthy of the princely residence he was projecting. 

The general plan and scope of the building were, no 
doubt, determined by the Cardinal himself, whose style was 
so distinct, both in this palace and in his other edifices, 
from the ordinary ecclesiastical Gothic, as to be often des- 
ignated by the term, " The Wolsey Architecture." 

The material selected was red brick, stone being em- 
ployed for the windows, the doorways, the copings of the 
parapets and turrets, the string courses, and the various or- 



HAMPTON COURT PALACE 28 1 

namental details— such as pinnacles, gargoyles, and her- 
aldic beasts, on gables and elsewhere. 

The first portion taken in hand was, doubtless, the great 
west front of the building, which extends, with its two 
wings, from north to south, 400 feet. This facade, though 
only two stories in height, has considerable beauty about 
it, and the picturesque turrets at the angles of the building, 
the embrasured parapet, the chimneys of carved and twisted 
brick, the graceful gables with their gargoyles and pinnacles, 
and the varied mullioned windows, form an admirable spec- 
imen of Tudor domestic architecture. It still preserves 
much of the charm of old work, although it has frequently 
been subjected to repairs and alterations ; but the effect is 
marred by the absence from the numerous turrets of the 
leaden cupolas (or "types" to use the correct old English 
term) which, with their crockets, pinnacles, and gilded 
vanes, formerly gave so uniquely picturesque an appearance 
to this part of the building. 

An especially striking feature in Wolsey's west front, as 
in other parts of the Tudor building, is the delicately 
moulded forms of the chimney shafts which rise in vari- 
ously grouped clusters, like slender turrets above the battle- 
ments and gables. They are all of red brick, constructed 
on many varieties of plan, and wrought and rubbed, with 
the greatest nicety, into different decorative patterns. Some 
are circular, some square (but set diagonally), and some 
octagonal ; and they are grouped together in twos or fours, 
with their shafts sometimes carried up solid, and sometimes 
separate. 



282 HAMPTON COURT PALACE 

Another charm is the deep crimson of the bricks, ap- 
proximating often to a rich purple, which contrasts favour- 
ably with the staring scarlet of modern red-brick work. 
This is particularly the case in the south or right-hand wing, 
one of the most picturesque portions of the whole palace. 

By the month of May, 15 16, the building had so far 
advanced that Wolsey was able to receive the King and 
Queen at dinner in his new abode. This was a time when 
Henry delighted to honour with his company his " awne 
goode Cardinal]," as he termed him, at pleasant little en- 
tertainments, when he could throw off the restraints of 
royalty, and join in unconventional intercourse with his per- 
sonal friends. During dinner or supper the minstrels 
usually played music, and afterwards the King and a few 
intimate friends took part in a masquerade or an impromptu 
dance. Sometimes he '' would oblige the company with a 
song," accompanying himself on the harpsichord or lute. 
At other times the King would visit the Cardinal in state 
accompanied by his whole court. 

After Wolsey's return from the meeting at the " Field 
of the Cloth of Gold," in 1520, he appears to have made 
more prolonged stays than heretofore at Hampton Court, 
which had now nearly arrived at that stage of completion in 
which he left it. We are not able exactly to define the 
limits of the Cardinal's palace, for after his death Henry 
Vni. carried out many alterations and additions, which in 
their turn have been subsequently modified ; but we can 
form a rough idea of its extent. We have already noticed 
the West Front as being entirely Wolsey's ; the same may 



HAMPTON COURT PALACE 283 

be said of the First Court, otherwise called the Base Court, 
or Utter (that is Outer) Court, which is the largest court- 
yard in the palace, being 167 feet from north to south, and 
142 from east to west. It gives us no mean idea of Tudor 
palatial architecture ; and when we restore in imagination 
the green turf which originally covered the area, the cupolas 
on the turrets, and the latticed windows, we see it as it ap- 
peared to the great Cardinal when riding through it on his 
mule. It has a look of warmth and comfort and repose, 
and an air of picturesque gloom which is in pleasing con- 
trast with the staring vulgarities of the " cheerful " cockney 
buildings of the present day. 

The Clock Court, access to which is had from the First 
Court through the archway of the Clock Tower, formed 
the inner and principal part of Wolsey's original palace ; 
but the alterations that it has undergone since his time cause 
it to present a very different appearance now. In the first 
place, the present Great Hall, which occupies the whole of 
its north side, though often called Wolsey's hall, was not 
erected by him, but, after his death, by Henry VIII., though 
it doubtless stands on the site of the smaller and older hall 
of the Cardinal's building. Then half of the east side of 
the court was rebuilt by George II., while the original 
south range is almost entirely obscured from view by the 
Ionic colonnade of Sir Christopher Wren. Here, however, 
we are in one of the most interesting corners of Hampton 
Court ; for behind this colonnade remains the original 
range of buildings in which are situated the very rooms oc- 
cupied by Cardinal Wolsey himself. 



284 



HAMPTON COURT PALACE 



Attached to this corner was one of the Cardinal's 
galleries, in which he used to pace, meditating on his polit- 
ical plans, on his chances for the popedom, and on the 
failing favour of the King. To this, which must have been 
demolished by William III., and to the other long galleries 
in the First Court, Cavendish makes reference in his 
metrical life of his master : 

*' My gallories were fayer, both large and long 
To walk in them when that it lyked me best." 

On the north side of the last two mentioned courts is a 
long intricate range of buildings, enclosing various smaller 
courts, and containing kitchens and other offices and bed- 
rooms for the numerous members of his household. Much 
of this part of the building, together with the cloisters and 
courts to the north-east, called the Round Kitchen and 
Chapel Courts, seem also to have been the work of the 
great Cardinal. The chapel, however, was remodelled, if 
not entirely rebuilt, by Henry VIII., though we may as- 
sume that it occupies the same site as that of Wolsey and 
the ancient one of the Knights Hospitallers, whose tombs 
perhaps lie beneath the kitchens and other offices contig- 
uous to the Chapel Court. 

When, therefore, we take into consideration William 
III.'s demolitions, which included some of the Cardinal's 
original structure as well as Henry VIII. 's additions, we 
may conclude that Wolsey's palace cannot have been very 
much smaller than the existing one, which covers eight 
acres, and has a thousand rooms. 



THE PALACE OF SHAH JEHAN 

BHOLANAUTH CHUNDER 

OUR next excursion was to the Fort, or Palace of Shah 
Jehan, which resembles a city on a miniature scale. 
In circuit, the high red walls encompassing it are a mile and a 
half. The space enclosed is 600,000 yards. There is no 
wall on the river-face. Bernier's account holds true to the 
present day, so far as the walls are five to six feet thick, 
forty to fifty feet high, and flanked with turrets and cupolas 
at intervals, similar to those on the walls of the city. They 
are built of granite, but possess no more the beauty of 
polished marble. The wide and deep moat round the 
walls, that he describes as full of water, and abounding with 
fish, is now all dry — the freestone pavement being beat 
upon by the sun. No longer, also, beyond the moat, are 
there any gardens extending to the skirts of the royal abode. 
Facing the Nowbut-Khanna on the inside about a 
hundred and twenty yards distant, is the first suite of the 
royal buildings, styled the Dewanni-anum^ or the hall of 
public audience. The ranges of two-storied buildings, once 
about this place, with their walls and arches adorned with a 
profusion of the richest tapestries, velvets, and silks, have 
all disappeared. The Detvanni-anum of Shah Jehan is 



286 THE PALACE OF SHAH JEHAN 

considerably larger and loftier than the building of the same 
name at Agra. It is a quadrangular hall, open at three sides, 
the roof of which is supported upon four rows of tall red- 
stone pillars, formerly ornamented with gilt arabesque 
paintings of flowers, but now covered with the eternal 
whitewash. The building was now occupied by the troops, 
and it was a great disappointment for us to miss the 
celebrated Marble Throne which all travellers speak of 
with admiration, — though it was in a state, we were told, 
that did not make it a very great curiosity. The throne is 
in an elevated recess, or niche in the back-wall, from which 
it projects into the hall, in front of the large central arch. 
There is a staircase to get up to it, the seat being raised ten 
feet from the floor. The size of the throne is about ten 
feet, and over it is a marble canopy supported on four 
marble pillars, all beautifully inlaid with mosaic work ex- 
quisitely finished, but now much dilapidated. In the wall 
behind is a doorway, by which the emperor entered from 
his apartments in the harem. This wall is covered with 
mosaic paintings in precious stones of various birds, beasts, 
fruits, and flowers. Many of them are executed in a very 
natural manner, and represent the birds and beasts of the 
several countries ruled over by Shah Jehan. On the upper 
part, in the centre of the wall " is represented, in the same 
precious stones, and in the graceful attitude, the figure of 
an European in a kind of Spanish costume, who is playing 
upon his guitar." This has been interpreted into a group 
of Orpheus, charming the birds and beasts with his music, 
and is what decides the work to be from the hands of a 



THE PALACE OF SHAH JEHAN 287 

French artist, mentioned by Bernier under the name of La 
Grange, alias Austin de Bordeaux. 

Upon this throne did Shah Jehan seat himself every day 
at noon, to receive the compliments or petitions of his sub- 
jects. He appeared on such occasions in great state, 
preceded by a cortege of mace-bearers, bearing silver figures 
upon silver sticks. His sons sat on each side of him, 
decked in costly apparel and jevi^els. Behind them stood in 
array eunuchs in rich liveries. Some of them drove off 
flies by moving chowries made of peacocks' feathers. Others 
vi^aved fans of coloured silk or velvet, embroidered vi^ith gold 
and precious stones. The chohdars and other messengers 
waited next in respectful silence to receive the commands 
of the sovereign. On a fine large slab of v/hite marble, 
raised some three feet above the ground, and fenced w^ith 
silver rails, stood the vizier and other secretaries, in front 
of the throne, to hand up petitions to their master, and to 
receive and convey his imperial commands. Next to them 
stood in humble attendance tributary Rajahs, dependent 
chiefs, and ambassadors from foreign princes. Beyond 
them vi^as the place for the Munsubdars^ who showed them- 
selves in the same attitude of respect and humility that 
marked the demeanour of the other attendants in the hall. 
In the furthermost part of the building, as well as in the 
outer court in front of it, thronged all sorts of people and 
visitants in one promiscuous crowd. 

Thus hedged round by divinity, sat Shah Jehan, as the 
Vicegerent of God upon earth, with his face turned towards 
Mecca. 



288 THE PALACE OF SHAH JEHAN 

The next suite of apartments is the Dewanni-Khas^ or 
hall of private audience. There is certainly much to admire 
in this building, but the expectations raised by reading are 
not half fulfilled. In richness of materials it may stand 
unrivalled, but in point of architectural design it does not 
possess more than ordinary excellence. 

Rising from a terrace, elevated some four to five feet 
from the ground, the Dewanyii-Khas forms an oblong- 
shaped pavilion, which measures one hundred and fifty feet 
in length, by forty feet in breadth. The height is vi^ell 
proportioned to these dimensions. The" building has a flat 
roof, supported upon ranges of massive arcaded pillars, all 
of a rich bluish-vi'hite marble. Between each of the front 
row of pillars is a balustrade of the same material, chastely 
carved in various designs of perforated work. The cornices 
and borders are decorated with a great quantity of frieze 
and sculptured work. The top is ornamented with four 
elegant marble pavilions, with gilt cupolas. In short, tlsfe,' 
Dewanni-Khas is an open, airy, and lightsome building, 
possessing in the highest degree all those features which, 
suggested by local climate form the peculiarity of Indian 
architecture. It is advantageously situated near the river, 
and affords, on a sultry night, the best place for delicious 
zephyrs to fan you to sleep. 

Nothing that is recorded in fiction or fact comes up 
to the magnificence of this hall. There traces remaining of 
that magnificence are enough to show that the reality of 
wealth develops those ideas of grandeur, which surpass all 
the imaginings of imagination. The gorgeous Pandemonium 



THE PALACE OF SHAH JEHAN 289 

of Milton, of which the idea may have been taken from 
Bernier's account of the Mogul court, is eclipsed by the 
Dewanni-Khas^ the grandeur of which is not apocryphal, 
but a realized fact. That "jasper pavement," which the 
mighty poet deemed to be so rich as to adorn the court of 
heaven, is seen here by every individual with his eyes 
broadly open. The pillars and arches are ornamented with 
tendrils of bright flowers and wreaths of bloodstone, agate, 
jasper, cornelian, and amethyst, that seem " snatched as it 
were from the garden, and pressed into the snowy blocks." 
There was a rich foliage of silver filagree work covering 
the entire ceiling. The Mahrattas in 1759, under their 
celebrated General Bhao, tore this down, and melted it into 
seventeen lacs of rupees. It has been replaced by one 
of gilt copper worked in a flower pattern. Never could 
the gorgeous splendour of this hall have been more em- 
phatically summed up than in the inscription which is 
sc ilptured in letters of gold in the cornices of the interior 
room — " If there is a paradise upon earth, it is this, it is 
this, it is this." 

In this hall was the Tukt Taous^ or the famous Peacock 
Throne. It was so called from its having the figures of 
two peacocks, with their tails spread, that were so naturally 
executed in sapphires, rubies, emeralds, pearls, and other 
precious stones of appropriate colours, as to represent life, 
and strike every beholder with the most dazzling splendour. 
" The throne itself was six feet long by four feet broad; it 
stood on six massive feet, which, with the body, were of 
solid gold, inlaid with rubies, emeralds, and diamonds. It 



290 THE PALACE OF SHAH JEHAN 

was surmounted by a canopy of gold supported by twelve 
pillars, all richly emblazoned with costly gems, and a fringe 
of pearls ornamented the borders of the canopy. Between 
the two peacocks stood the figure of a parrot of the ordinary 
size, said to have been carved out of a single emerald (?). 
On either side of the throne stood a chatta or umbrella, one 
of the Oriental emblems of royalty ; they were formed of 
crimson velvet, richly embroidered and fringed with pearls, 
the handles were eight feet high, of solid gold, and studded 
with diamonds." Tavernier, a jeweller by profession, and 
who saw this superb throne, estimates the cost of it at six 
and a half millions sterling, or six crores of rupees. The 
device was not original ; it seems to have been taken from 
a representation of the Karteek of the Hindoos. The 
umbrella, also, was one of the insignia of Hindoo royalty. It 
was on the birthday of Soliman Sheko that the joy of 
a grandfather had been especially manifested by Shah 
Jehan's first mounting the Tukt Taous. 

It is recorded by Bernier, that the " King appeared 
seated upon this throne at one extremity of the great hall 
of the Jm-Khas^ splendidly attired, his garment being of 
white flowered satin, richly embroidered, his turban of gold 
cloth, having an aigrette worked upon it, the feet of which 
were studded with diamonds of extraordinary lustre and 
value, and in the centre was a beautiful Oriental topaz of 
matchless size and splendour, shining like a little sun : 
round his neck was a string of pearls, of great value, which 
hung down to his waist. The throne on which he sat was 
supported by six pillars of massive gold, enriched with a 



THE PALACE OF SHAH JEHAN 29 1 

profusion of rubies, emeralds, and diamonds, and his other 
insignia of state were embellished with equal grandeur. 
The pillars of the hall were magnificently orna- 
mented with gold tapestry, and the ceiling was covered 
over with beautiful flowered satin, fastened with red silk 
cords, having at each corner festoons with gold tassels. 
Below nothing was to be seen but rich silk tapestries of ex- 
traordinary dimensions. In the court, at a little distance, 
was pitched a tent called the Aspek^ which in length and 
breadth somewhat exceeded the hall, and reached almost to 
the centre of the court. It was likewise surrounded with a 
large balustrade of solid silver, and supported by three 
poles, of the height and thickness of a large mast, and by 
several smaller ones, — covered with plates of silver. The 
outside was red, and the lining within of beautiful chintz, 
manufactured expressly for the purpose at Masulipatam, 
representing a hundred different flowers, so naturally done, 
and the colours so vivid, that one would imagine it to be a 
hanging parterre.'' No mention of the Koh-i-noor appears 
in this account — it must have been somewhere, either in 
the Peacock Throne, or on the arm or turban of the mon- 
arch. Possibly, the string of pearls spoken of was the 
same that Runjeet Sing afterwards wore around his waist. 
The cynicism of a poet may style all this as " barbaric 
pearl and gold," but it is what, after all, quiets the yearn- 
ings of all civilized men. 

The Peacock Throne no longer exists. It was carried 
off as a trophy by Nadir Shah, and had to be broken up in 
all probability, into ten thousand pieces of stone, now scat- 



292 THE PALACE OF SHAH JEHAN 

tered all over the world. In its place is a simple marble 
throne that by itself is not an ordinary piece of workman- 
ship. In strolling through the hall we paused before this 
throne ; and as a monument of fallen greatness it failed not 
to affect us with the usual sentiment of" all is vanity under 
the sun." It may be looked upon almost as the seat of 
Shah Jehan, and Aurungzebe, and Shah Alum, — and raises 
a host of associations that come rapping at the door of 
memory. Here stood the graceful Soliman, his hands 
bound in gilded fetters, entreating in the most pathetic 
language to be put to death at once, rather than be sen- 
tenced to die by slow poison, — thereby affecting many of 
the courtiers to tears, and making the ladies of the harem 
to weep aloud from behind the screens. Here Sevajee in 
expectation of an honourable reception, but finding himself 
to be treated with studied neglect, could not control his 
feelings of indignation, changed colour, and sank to the 
ground in a swoon, — while a daughter of Aurungzebe, see- 
ing the young stranger from behind a curtain, became 
enamoured of him. Here sat Mahomed Shah bandying 
compliments with Nadir Shah, and sipping coffee, while 
the corpses of a hundred thousand slaughtered Delhi-ites 
tainted the air. It is related " that the coffee was delivered 
to the two sovereigns in this room upon a gold salver, by 
the most polished gentleman of the court. His motions, as 
he entered the gorgeous apartment, amidst the splendid 
trains of the two emperors, were watched with great 
anxiety ; if he presented the coffee first to his own master, 
the furious conqueror, before whom the sovereign of India 



THE PALACE OF SHAH JEHAN 293 

and all his courtiers trembled, might order him to instant 
execution ; if he presented it to Nadir first, he would in- 
sult his own sovereign out of fear of the stranger. To the 
astonishment of all, he walked up with a steady step direct 
to his own master. ' I cannot,' said he, ' aspire to the 
honour of presenting the cup to the King of Kings, your 
Majesty's honoured guest, nor would your Majesty wish 
that any hand but your own should do so.' The emperor 
took the cup from the golden salver, and presented it to 
Nadir Shah, who said with a smile as he took it, ' Had all 
your officers known and done their duty like this man, you 
had never, my good cousin, seen me and my Kussilbashees 
at Delhi ; take care of him, for your own sake, and get 
round you as many like him as you can.' " 

The Dewanni-Khas is now all desolate and forlorn. It 
is a matter of heartfelt regret to see the barbarous ravages 
that have been committed in picking out the different 
precious stones. There is a mark of violence on one of the 
pillars, which the Mahrattas attempted to break. No rose- 
beds or fountains about the building now — only the bare 
skeleton of it is standing. The Great Mogul's hall of 
audience was, till lately, used as a museum, the contents 
of which have been now removed to the new Delhi 
Institute. 

The freest public lounge is not more open to access than 
is now the seat of Mogul jealousy — the Seraglio. " There 
was scarcely a chamber that had not a reservoir adjoining 
it — with parterres, beautiful walks, groves, rivulets, foun- 
tains, grottos, jets of water, alcoves, and raised terraces to 



294 THE PALACE OF SHAH JEHAN 

sleep upon, and enjoy the cool air at night." Now that 
everything has disappeared, this description of Bernier 
seems to be almost imaginary — an account of the " baseless 
fabric of a vision." The " parterres," " walks," " groves," 
"grottos," and " raised terraces " have all ceased to exist. 



EDINBURGH CASTLE 

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 

MEDITATIVE people will find a charm in a certain 
conancy between the aspect of the city and its 
odd and stirring history. Few places, if any, offer a more 
barbaric display of contrasts to the eye. In the very midst 
stands one of the most satisfactory crags in nature — a Bass 
Rock upon dry land, rooted in a garden, shaken by passing 
trains, carrying a crown of battlements and turrets, and 
describing its warlike shadow over the liveliest and brightest 
thoroughfare of the new town. From their smoky bee- 
hives, ten stories high, the unwashed look down upon the 
open squares and gardens of the wealthy ; and gay people 
sunning themselves along Princes Street, with its mile of 
commercial palaces all beflagged upon some great occasion, 
see, across a gardened valley set with statues, where the 
washings of the old town flutter in the breeze at its high 
windows. And then, upon all sides, what a clashing of 
architecture ! In this one valley, where the life of the 
town goes most busily forward, there may be seen, shown 
one above and behind another by the accidents of the 
ground, buildings in almost every style upon the globe. 
Egyptian and Greek temples, Venetian palaces and Gothic 
spires, are huddled one over another in a most admired dis- 
order; while, above all, the brute mass of the Castle and 



296 EDINBURGH CASTLE 

the summit of Arthur's Seat look down upon these imita- 
tions with a becoming dignity, as the works of Nature may 
look down upon the monuments of Art. But Nature is a 
more indiscriminate patroness than we imagine, and in no 
way frightened of a strong effect. The birds roost as 
willingly among the Corinthian capitals as in the crannies 
of the crag ; the same atmosphere and daylight clothe the 
eternal rock and yesterday's imitation portico ; and as the 
soft northern sunshine throws out everything into a glorified 
distinctness— or easterly mists, coming up with the blue 
evening fuse all these incongruous features into one, and 
the lamps begin to glitter along the street, and faint lights 
to burn in the high windows across the valley — the feeling 
grows upon you that this also is a piece of nature in the 
most intimate sense ; that this profusion of eccentricities, 
this dream in masonry and living rock, is not a drop-scene 
in a theatre, but a city in the world of every-day reality, 
connected by railway and telegraph-wire with all the capitals 
of Europe, and inhabited by citizens of the familiar type, 
who keep ledgers and attend church, and have sold their 
immortal portion to a daily paper. By all the canons of 
romance, the place demands to be half deserted and leaning 
towards decay ; birds we might admit in profusion, the 
play of the sun and winds, and a i'ew gypsies encamped in 
the chief thoroughfare : but these citizens, with their cabs 
and tramways, their trains and posters, are altogether out of 
key. Chartered tourists, they make free with historic 
localities, and rear their young among the most picturesque 
sites with a grand human indifference. To see them 



EDINBURGH CASTLE 



297 



thronging by, in their neat clothes and conscious moral 
rectitude, and with a little air of possession that verges 
on the absurb, is not the least striking feature of the 
place. 

The Old Town, it is pretended, is the chief characteristic, 
and, from a picturesque point of view, the liver-wing of 
Edinburgh. It is one of the most common forms of de- 
preciation to throw cold water on the whole by adroit over- 
commendation of a part, since everything worth judging, 
whether it be a man, a work of art, or only a fine city, 
must be judged upon its merits as a whole. The Old 
Town depends for much of its effect on the new quarters 
that lie around it, on the sufficiency of its situation, and on 
the hills that back it up. If you were to set it somewhere 
else by itself, it would look remarkably like Stirling in a 
bolder and loftier edition. The point is to see this embel- 
lished Stirling planted in the midst of a large, active, and 
fantastic modern city; for there the two re-act in a 
picturesque sense, and the one is the making of the other. 

The Old Town occupies a sloping ridge or tail of 
diluvial matter, protected, in some subsidence of the waters, 
by the Castle cliffs, which fortify it to the west. On the 
one side of it and the other the new towns of the south 
and of the north occupy their lower, broader, and more 
gentle hill-tops. Thus, the quarter of the Castle overtops 
the whole city and keeps an open view to sea and land. It 
dominates for miles on every side j and people on the 
decks of ships, or ploughing in quiet country places over in 
Fife, can see the banner on the Castle battlements, and the 



298 



EDINBURGH CASTLE 



smoke of the Old Town blowing abroad over the subjacent 
country. A city that is set upon a hill. It was, I suppose, 
from this distant aspect that she got her name of Juld 
Reekie. Perhaps it was given her by people who had never 
crossed her doors ; day after day, from their various rustic 
Pisgahs, they had seen the pile of building on the hill-top, 
and the long plume of smoke over the plain ; so it appeared 
to them ; so it had appeared to their fathers tilling the same 
field ; and as that was all they knew of the place, it could 
be all expressed in two words. 

There is a silly story of a subterranean passage between 
the Castle and Holyrood, and a bold Highland piper who 
volunteered to explore its windings. He made his entrance 
by the upper end, playing a strathspey ; the curious footed 
it after him down the street, following his descent by the 
sound of the chanter from below ; until all of a sudden, 
about the level of St. Giles's, the music came abruptly to an 
end, and the people in the street stood at fault with hands 
uplifted. Whether he was choked with gasses, or perished 
in a quag, or was removed bodily by the Evil One, remains 
a point of doubt ; but the piper has never again been seen 
or heard of from that day to this. Perhaps he wandered 
down into the land of Thomas the Rhymer, and some day, 
when it is least expected, may take a thought to revisit the 
sunlit upper world. That will be a strange moment for the 
cabmen on the stands beside St. Giles's, when they hear 
the drone of his pipes reascending from the bowels of the 
earth below their horses' feet. 

Of all places for a view Calton Hill is perhaps the best ; 



EDINBURGH CASTLE 



299 



since you can see the Castle, which you lose from the 
Castle, and Arthur's Seat, which you cannot see from 
Arthur's Seat. It is the place to stroll on one of those 
days of sunshine and east wind which are so common in 
our more than temperate summer. Upon the right, the 
roofs and spire of the Old Town climb one above 
another to where the citadel prints its broad bulk and 
jagged crown of bastions on the western sky. — Perhaps it 
is now one in the afternoon ; and at the same instant of 
time, a ball rises to the summit of Nelson's flagstaff close 
at hand, and, far away, a pufF of smoke followed by a re- 
port bursts from the half-moon battery at the Castle. This 
is the time-gun by which people set their watches, as far as 
the sea-coast or in hill farms upon the Pentlands. And 
while you are looking across upon the Castle Hill, the 
drums and bugles begin to recall the scattered garrison ; the 
air thrills with the sound ; the bugles sing aloud ; and the 
last rising flourish mounts and melts into the darkness like 
a star : a martial swan-song, fitly rounding in the labours of 
the day. 



EDINBURGH CASTLE 

JAMES NORRIS BREWER 

THE Castle of Edinburgh was originally denominated 
Castelh Mynyd Agned^ that is, " the fortress of the 
hill of Agnes ; " and the hill itself was termed Mynyd 
Agned Cathre-gonion^ which implies in the language of the 
ancient Britons, "the Hill Agned nigh the fortress." From 
which appellations it would appear that the Castle was 
founded after the introduction of Christianity to Scotland. 
At a subsequent period, the fortress was called Castrum 
Puellarum^ because, as some assert, the daughters of the 
Pictish chiefs received " their education " in the Castle. It 
is beyond a question that a very short period would have 
been sufficient for all the instruction which the rude chief- 
tains of the Picts were anxious to bestow on the daughters ; 
but the Castle answered a more needful purpose, by pro- 
tecting those high-born damsels from the indignities to 
which they might have been subject in a residence of less 
strength, while their fathers and brothers were despoiling 
neighbouring territories, and making free with the families of 
conquered rivals. Some persons have wished to ascribe a 
very remote origin to Edinburgh Castle ; but it is certain 
that a battle was fought on the site of the building by 
Arthur, King of the Britons, towards the close of the Fifth 
Century. 



EDINBURGH CASTLE 301 

The ground-plot of the fortress occupies about six acres. 
At the western extremity is the outer barrier, which is 
formed of strong palisadoes. Beyond this are a dry ditch, 
a draw-bridge and a gate, defended by two flanking bat- 
teries. 

In the south-east quarter of the castle, state-prisoners were 
formerly kept, and here, in an apartment called the crown- 
room it is by some pretended that the regalia of Scotland are 
still deposited. It is well known that they were lodged 
here, with much formality on the 26th of March, 1707. 

Neither history nor tradition records any circumstance in 
which Edinburgh Castle is conspicuous, till the year 1093. 
On the authority of Fordun and Dalrymple, the following 
story concerning that period is related : — when Malcolm 
Canmore was slain in battle, his widow. Queen Margaret, 
took refuge in the Castle of Edinburgh, where she very 
shortly died. " Donald Bane, uncle to Malcolm's children, 
having usurped the throne, now besieged the Castle in which 
the orphan-heir to the crown resided. The usurper, presum- 
ing from the steepness of the rock that Malcolm's children 
could escape only at the gates, ordered them alone to be 
guarded. But those in the garrison, knowing this, con- 
veyed the body of the Queen through a postern gate on the 
west side of the Castle, to the church of Dunfermline, 
where it lies interred : and the children escaping to England, 
where they were protected and educated by their uncle, 
Edgar Atheling." 

After the murder of James I. at Perth, the son and suc- 
cessor of that Monarch, who inherited the crown at the 



302 



EDINBURGH CASTLE 



age of seven years, was placed under the care of Crichton, 
the chancellor, while Sir Thomas Livingstone was ap- 
pointed regent. But a quarrel occurring between the two 
great officers of state, James was detained, in splendid con- 
finement, at Edinburgh Castle, by Sir William Crichton. 
But the Queen-Dowager, who favoured the opposite party, 
resolved to rescue her son, and place him in the hands of 
the regent. In pursuit of this purpose, she paid a visit to 
the youthful Sovereign, during which she affected to dis- 
play great friendship towards the chancellor, and asserted 
an intention of never interfering in matters of state. 
Crichton was deceived by these assurances, and readily 
granted the Queen permission to remove certain articles 
from the Castle, which would be wanted by her in the 
course of a pilgrimage to a church in East Lothian, which 
she was on the point of undertaking. The effects were 
conveyed from the Castle at an early hour of the morning, 
and among them, concealed in a trunk, was removed the 
young King, who was supposed to be asleep and secure in 
his chamber. A vessel was ready, and he, the same night, 
reached Stirling, where he was received with open arms by 
the triumphant Queen and regent. 

But the fruit of the Queen's ingenuity was soon wrested 
from her by the superior address of the chancellor. 
Crichton knew that the King hunted frequently in the 
woods near Stirling, and he watched an opportunity during 
the absence of the regent, to conceal himself, and a de- 
termined band, in the deep shade of a wood through which 
it was likely the King would pass. James fell into the 



EDINBURGH CASTLE 



303 



snare, and the chancellor, with many protestations of respect, 
and much show of real courtesy, conducted him to his former 
place of secluded residence. 

The over-weening power and extreme insolence of the 
Earl of Douglas caused a reconciliation to take place, 
shortly after this event, between the chancellor and the 
regent, who were mutually apprehensive of the ill conse- 
quences of a division in the state, while the ambitious 
Douglas was daily increasing in authority and turbulence. 
Convinced of the inefficacy of the executive power to in- 
flict justice on the Earl, or to put a stop to his oppressive 
proceedings, the two new co-adjutors resolved on proving 
the sincerity of their alliance, by the assassination of their 
rival ; and, for this purpose, the chancellor decoyed him 
into the Castle. Lord Douglas was treated with so much 
well-counterfeited respect that he felt assured of security, 
and consented to share a banquet with the King and the 
two great officers who ruled in the Monarch's name. Here 
smiles and hilarity prevailed : the regent flattered the pride 
of Douglas, and the chancellor pressed his hand, with 
warm assurances of attachment. But, towards the con- 
clusion of the entertainment, a bull's head was set before 
the unsuspicious guest. Douglas understood the fatal sym- 
bol, and sprang from the table ; but he was instantly sur- 
rounded by armed men, who dragged him, in spite of the 
King's tears and supplications, to the outer court of the 
Castle, where he was murdered. 



LAMBTON CASTLE 

WILLIAM HOWITT 

AM ETON CASTLE is a perfect and expressive 
image of the feudalism of the Nineteenth Century ; 
of feudalism made easy, to the present generation ; of 
feudalism which has never ceased to exist, whatever con- 
cussions shook the empire, or whatever spasms rocked the 
constitution ; which has for the greater part of a thousand 
years fought its way, whether in steel jacket or in scarlet 
broadcloth, with spear or with musket; which has never 
failed to hold its own, and to hand down the huge domains 
which it won in England, under the banners of William 
of Normandy. It is now polished indeed, but it is still 
strong ; it prides itself on its most ancient style of habita- 
tion, but over and around that habitation it has poured the 
grace of modern art, and filled it with all the amenities, the 
comforts, the softnesses, and intellectual resources of a busy, 
scientific, refined, and luxurious age. Such is the entire 
character of Lambton Castle. You see before you, indeed, 
Gothic towers and battlements, but around them spread 
lawns such only as England and the England of our day 
knows. You approach it by roads not made for the hoofs 
of old war horses to disturb, but for the wheels of gay 
chariots to roll over; and within you find a glittering and 
sumptuous succession of books, paintings, statues, marble 



LAMBTON CASTLE 305 

pillars, gorgeous vases, soft carpets of richest dyes and 
softer beds, curtained into silken privacy ; and all the name- 
less and numberless little articles and marks of taste, which, 
to a true old castle-dvv^eller, would form a wilderness of 
contemptible baubles, and a heap of articles that he would 
never even wish to want. 

At the time that I visited Lambton Castle, its possessor 
was even then seeking relief from indisposition in the south 
of England, and serious fears were entertained that his life 
would not be long. That curious old legend of Lambton, 
of which we shall have presently to speak, seemed still, in 
the physical condition of the existing lord, to assert that it 
was more than a superstition of the old times, but was 
founded on an influence fatal to the longevity of the race. 
Though the period of the spell was said to terminate in 
General Lambton, as the ninth in descent from the slayer 
of the Worm, yet neither his son nor his grandson has 
been longer lived, nor have they died at home. 

It was not without a more sensible interest, that, reflect- 
ing on these circumstances, I went through the grounds 
and the Castle of Lambton. Here were all that nature and 
art could effect in combination to make a noble abode for 
its possessor; but a mysterious fiat of destiny seemed to be 
pronounced over the race, of short and embittered enjoy- 
ment of it. 

The Wear here performs some of its most beautiful 
windings, for which it is so remarkable, and its lofty banks 
hung with fine woods, presented the most lovely views 
whichever way you looked. A new bridge leads across the 



306 LAMBTON CASTLE 

river, and a winding carriage-road conducts you by an easy 
ascent through pleasant woodlands up to the Castle. You 
pass under a light suspension bridge which leads from the 
Castle, along the banks above the river, through the woods 
of great beauty, and where you find the most pleasant soli- 
tudes, with varied views of the river and sounds of its 
hurrying water. The Castle, in all its newness of aspect, 
stands boldly on the height above the river, with beautiful 
green slopes descending towards it. As you approach the 
Castle, and enter it, everything impresses you with a sense 
of its strength, tastefulness, and completeness. The com- 
pact and well-built walls of clam-stone ; the well-paved 
and well-finished courts; the numerous and complete offi- 
ces; the kitchens, furnished with every convenience and 
implement that modern skill and ingenuity can bring to- 
gether ; all tell you that you are in the abode of a man of 
the amplest resources. As you advance, elegance and 
luxury are added to completeness ; and you are surrounded 
not by the rude and quaint objects of our old houses, but 
by the rich requisites of present aristocratic existence. 
The snug boudoir, the lord's dressing-room, the bath, the 
library, the saloon, the drawing-room, and all the various 
apartments of a noble modern house, into which are some- 
times crowded several hundred guests — we shall not at- 
tempt to describe. 

One of the most remarkable things about Lambton, is 
that Legend of the Worm, and the popular ideas attached 
to it, to which we have already alluded. The story of the 
Worm of Lambton cannot be better told than in the words 



LAMBTON CASTLE 



307 



of Surtees : *' The heir of Lambton, fishing, as was his 
profane custom, in the Wear of a Sunday, hooked a small 
worm or eft, which he carelessly threw into a well, and 
thought no more of the adventure. The worm, at first neg- 
lected, grew till it was too large for its first habitation, and 
issuing forth from the Worm Well^ betook itself to the 
Wear, where it usually lay a part of the day coiled round a 
crag in the middle of the water ; it also frequented a green 
mound near the well, called thence ' The Worm Hill^ 
where it lapped itself nine times round, leaving vermicular 
traces, of which, grave living witnesses depose that they 
have seen the vestiges. It now became the terror of the 
country ; and, amongst other enormities, levied a daily con- 
tribution of nine cows' milk, which was always placed for 
it at the green hill, and in default of which it devoured man 
and beast. Young Lambton had, it seems, meanwhile, 
totally repented him of his former life and conversation ; 
had bathed himself in a bath of holy water, taken the sign 
of the Cross, and joined the Crusaders. On his return 
home he was extremely shocked at witnessing the effects 
of his youthful imprudence, saw that the Worm must be at 
once destroyed, and immediately undertook the adventure. 
After several fierce combats, in which the crusader was 
foiled by his enemy's power of self-union^ he found it expe- 
dient to add policy to courage, and not, perhaps, possessing 
much of the former quality, he went to consult a witch, or 
wise woman. By her judicious advice, he armed himself 
(^in a coat of mail, studded with razor-blades, and thus pre- 
pared, placed himself on the crag in the river, and awaited 



3o8 LAMBTON CASTLE 

the monster's arrival. At the usual time, the Worm came 
to the rock, and wound himself with great fury round the 
armed knight, who had the satisfaction to see his enemy 
cut in pieces by his own efforts, while the stream washing 
away the several parts prevented the possibility of re-union. 
There is still a sequel to the story. The witch had prom- 
ised Lambton success only on one condition — that he 
would slay the first living thing which met his sight after 
the victory. To avoid the possibility of human slaughter, 
Lambton had directed his father, that as soon as he heard 
him sound three blasts on his bugle, in token of the 
achievement performed, he should release his favourite 
greyhound, which would immediately fly to the sound of 
the horn, and was destined to be the sacrifice. On hearing 
his son's bugle, however, the old chief was so overjoyed 
that he forgot his injunctions, and ran himself with open 
arms to meet his son. Instead of committing a parricide, 
the conqueror again repaired to his adviser, who pro- 
nounced, as the alternative of disobeying the original in- 
structions, that no chief of the Lambtons should die in his 
bed for seven, or, as some accounts say, for nine genera- 
tions — a commutation which, to a martial spirit, had noth- 
ing probably very terrible, and which was willingly com- 
plied with." 

Popular tradition assigns the chapel of Brigford as the 
spot where Lambton offered up his vows before and after 
the adventure. In the garden-house at Lambton are two 
figures of great antiquity. A knight, in good style, armed 
cap-a-pie, the back however not studded tuith razor blades^ 



LAMBTON CASTLE 



309 



who holds the Worm by one ear with his left hand, and 
with his right, thrusts his sword to the hilt down his 
throat ; and a lady, who wears a coronet, with bare breasts, 
etc., in the style of Charles II. 's Beauties — a wound on 
whose bosom, and an accidental mutilation of the hand, are 
said to be the work of the Worm. A real good Andrea 
Ferrara, inscribed on the blade 1521, notwithstanding the 
date, has also been pressed into the service, and is said to 
be the identical weapon by which the Worm perished. 

The scene of the Worm's haunts, and the combat, is at 
a considerable distance from the Castle ; in fact, about a 
mile and a half from the old Lambton Hall, where the 
Lambtons then dwelt. It is on the north bank of the 
Wear, in the estate of North Biddick, and now in quite a 
populous location. The Worm Hill is a conspicuous 
conical mound of considerable size, but having all the ap- 
pearance of an ancient barrow, or other artificial tumulus. 
It stands in a meadow just at the backs of some houses, is 
perfectly green with grass ; and now, whatever it might do 
formerly, bears not the slightest trace of the place where 
the worm coiled itself. It is about eighty yards from the 
river, and the well lay twenty-six yards from the hill. 
Half a century ago the Worm Well was in repute as a 
Wishing Well^ and was one of the scenes dedicated to the 
usual festivities and superstitions of Midsummer Eve. 



ARANJUEZ 

EDMONDO DE AMICIS 

IN leaving Madrid by the southern route, you traverse 
an uninhabited country that recalls the poorest prov- 
inces of Aragon and old Castile, just as happened on your 
arrival by the northern. These are vast, yellowish, and 
dried-up plains; you would say that if you beat upon it, 
the earth would resound like an empty box, or crumble 
away like the crust of a burnt tart ; occasionally you see 
miserable villages, of the same colour as the land, which 
look as if they would ignite like a heap of dry leaves, if 
any one were to bring a match to the roof of one of the 
houses. After an hour's travel, my shoulder sought the 
side of the carriage, my elbow a leaning-place, and I fell 
into a profound sleep, like a member of Leopardi's Ateneo 
d' Ascolta-zione. 

I looked around me : the vast deserted plain was trans- 
formed as if by enchantment into an immense garden full 
of delightful groves, crossed in every direction by great 
avenues, dotted with little country houses and rustic cabins 
covered with vines ; and, here and there were tossing foun- 
tains, shady nooks, flowery meadows, vineyards, little foot- 
paths, and a greenness, a freshness, an odour of spring, a 
breath of joy and delight that wafted your soul to paradise. 
We had arrived at Aranjuez. I left the train, threaded my 



ARANJUEZ on 

way down a beautiful avenue shaded by two rows of gigan- 
tic trees, and in an instant found myself opposite the royal 
palace. 

Castelar, the minister, wrote recently in his memorandum 
that the fall of the ancient Spanish monarchy was foreseen 
on the day that a herd of populace with abuse on their lips 
and anger in their hearts, invaded the palace of Aranjuez 
to disturb the tranquil majesty of its sovereigns. I was 
precisely on that spot, where, on March 17, 1808, occurred 
the events that formed the prologue to the national war and 
the first word of the sentence, as it were, that condemned 
the ancient monarchy to death. I immediately looked for 
the windows of the apartment of the Prince of Peace ; I 
pictured him, fleeing from hall to hall, pale and dishevelled, 
hunting for a hiding-place, amidst the echoing cries of the 
multitude that mounted the stairway ; I saw poor Charles 
IV. place the crown on the head of the Prince of the 
Asturias with trembling hands; all the scenes of that 
terrible drama passed before my eyes ; and the deep silence 
of this place and the sight of that shut and abandoned 
palace chilled me to the heart. 

The palace is built like a castle; it is of brick with 
corners of white marble, and covered with a slate roof. 
Every one knows that Philip II. had it built by the cele- 
brated architect Herrera, and that nearly all his successors 
embellished it, and lived there during the summer season. 
I entered : the interior is splendid ; there is a resplendent 
hall for the reception of ambassadors, a beautiful Chinese 
cabinet of Charles III., a superb dressing-room of Isabella 



312 ARANJUEZ 

II., and a profusion of precious ornaments. But all the 
riches of the palace are not worth the view of the gardens. 
Expectations are not deceived. The gardens of Aranjuez 
(Aranjuez is the name of the little town situate a short dis- 
tance from the palace) seem to have been laid out for the 
family of Titan Kings, to whom the parks and gardens of 
our Kings would have appeared like terrace parterres and 
sheep-folds. Avenues, extending as far as the eye can 
reach and bordered by trees of an inordinate height uniting 
their branches and leaning towards us as if bent by two 
contrary winds, in every direction cross a forest the bound- 
aries of which one cannot see ; and through this forest the 
wide and rapid Tagus describes a majestic curve, forming 
here and there cascades and basins ; a luxuriant and flour- 
ishing vegetation abounds amid a labyrinth of little 
avenues and cross-roads ; everywhere is seen the whiteness 
of statues, fountains, columns and high jets of water that 
fall in sheets and rain and spray on all the flowers known 
to Europe and America ; and to the majestic sound of the 
cascade of the Tagus is joined the song of innumerable 
nightingales that pour their trills into the mysterious shade 
of the lonely paths. Beyond the gardens, rises a little 
marble palace, modest in appearance, which contains all the 
marvels of the most magnificent royal residence, and where 
one still breathes the atmosphere of the life of the Kings of 
Spain. Here are the little secret chambers the ceilings of 
which may be touched by the hand, the billiard-room of 
Charles IV., cushions embroidered by the hands of queens, 
musical clocks that amused the idle children, little stairways, 



ARANJUEZ 3 I 3 

tiny windows that preserve a hundred little traditions of the 
caprice of princes : and, finally, the richest toilet-room in 
Europe, due to a whim of Charles IV., and which contains 
in itself so much wealth that one could draw enough from 
it to build a palace, without depriving it of the noble pre- 
eminence it boasts above all rooms appropriated to the 
same use. 

Beyond this palace, and around the woodlands, extend 
vineyards, olive-trees, plantations of fruit-trees and smiling 
meadows. It is a veritable oasis surrounded by a desert 
which Philip II. chose in a day of good humour, as if to al- 
leviate the black melancholy of the Escurial with a gay pic- 
ture. On returning from the little marble palace to the great 
palace of the Escurial down these long avenues, beneath the 
shade of these large trees, in this profound peace of the forest, 
I thought of the splendid pageants of ladies and cavaliers 
that formerly followed the steps of the gay young 
monarchs and capricious and unrestrained queens to the 
sound of love-songs and hymns, celebrating the grandeur 
and the glory of unvanquished Spain, and I repeated sadly 
with the poet of Recanati : 

*' . . . All is peace and silence. 

And one speaks no longer of them. . . ." 



GLAMIS CASTLE 

LADY GLAMIS 

TO the lover of Shakespeare, the name of Glammis 
(as it was sometimes spelt) will recall the act of 
treachery and murder which tradition gives as having taken 
place there, when King Duncan was done to death by the 
hand or at the instigation of the ambitious and unscrupu- 
lous Lady Macbeth ; although there is no possibility of 
proving or testing the truth as to the details or locality of 
the tragedy. 

To the antiquarian, the Castle must be of immense in- 
terest on account of the great age of the central portion, 
or keep, which is known to have been standing in 1016, but 
" whose birth tradition notes not " ; while to the romantic 
and superstitious it is associated as a place where ghosts and 
spirits moving silently down winding stairs and dark pas- 
sages are wont to make night fearsome. This feeling of 
eeriness is not confined to the naturally nervous, for Sir 
Walter Scott, who spent a night at Glamis in 1794, 
writes : 

" After a very hospitable reception, ... I was 
conducted to my apartment in a distant part of the build- 
ing. I must own that when I heard door after door shut, 
after my conductor had retired, I began to consider myself 
too far from the living and somewhat too near the dead." 



GLAMIS CASTLE 315 

Additional interest attaches to this castle from the fact 
that its venerable walls enshroud a mysterious somethings 
which has for centuries baffled the curiosity and investiga- 
tions of all unauthorized persons ; this secret is known 
only to three people — the Earl of the time being, his eldest 
son, and one other individual, whom they think worthy of 
their confidence. 

Most people have theories upon this subject, and many 
ridiculous stories are told; but so carefully has the mys- 
tery been guarded, that no suspicion of the truth has ever 
come to light. One version of the story is as follows : 
Several centuries ago the Lord Glamis of the time was en- 
tertaining the head of another noble family then resident in 
Angus ; and in the course of the evening they commenced 
to play cards. It was Saturday night, and so intent were 
they on wagering lands and money on the issue of the 
game, that they did not recognize the fact that Sunday 
morning was approaching until an old retainer ventured to 
remind them of the hour. Whereupon one of the gam- 
blers swore a great oath, with the tacit approval of the 
other, that they did not care what day it might be, but 
they would iinish their game at any cost, even if they 
went on playing till Doomsday ! It had struck midnight 
ere he had finished his sentence, when there suddenly ap- 
peared a stranger dressed in black, who politely informed 
their lordships that he would take them at their word, and 
vanished. 

The story goes on to aver that annually on that night 
three noblemen, or their spirits, meet and play cards in the 



3i6 



GLAMIS CASTLE 



secret room of the Castle, and that this will go on till 
Doomsday. In corroboration of this story, it is said that 
on a certain night in the autumn of every year, loud 
noises are heard, and some of the casements of the Castle 
are blown open. 

Glamis Castle stands in the centre of the vale of Strath- 
more, in a picturesque and well-wooded part of Forfarshire ; 
the heather-clad sides of the Sidlaws, which divide Strath- 
more from the sea, rising to the south, while away to the 
north tower the Grampians, which form a magnificent 
background to the ancient pile of buildings, whose turrets 
rise some hundred and fifteen feet above the level of the 
ground. 

The poet. Gray, in a letter, describes the exterior of the 
castle in the following words : 

" The house, from the height of it, the greatness of its 
mass, the many towers atop, and the spread of its wings, 
has really a very singular and striking appearance, like noth- 
ing I ever saw." 

The oldest portions of the Castle are formed of huge 
irregular blocks of old red sandstone, which time and 
weather have mellowed into a beautiful grey, pink colour. 
The walls in many places are sixteen feet thick, which in 
the olden days had the essential recommendation of great 
security, and also of allowing space for secret rooms and 
passages as means of escape in times of peril ; and as a 
matter of fact, two secret staircases have been discovered 
within the last five-and-twenty years, and possibly there are 
others which still remain forgotten and unused, j 



GLAMIS CASTLE 



317 



The narrow windows appear at irregular heights and dis- 
tances in the central building or keep and left wing (the 
right wing having been burnt down and rebuilt early in 
1800, is not so interesting), but the great staircase added by 
Patrick, Lord Glamis, in 1605, is very fine, occupying a 
circular tower, the space for which has been partly dug 
out of the old walls of the keep, and rises to the third 
story. This staircase (the designing for which has been 
attributed to Inigo Jones) is spiral, with a hollow newel in 
the centre, and is composed of stone to the summit. It 
consists of 143 steps, 6 feet 10 inches in width, each of 
one stone. 

The staircases, which were in use before 1600, are very 
narrow, dark, and some of them winding, the steps steep 
and irregular in height, worn into hollows by the many feet 
that for centuries climbed them. Up two flights of these 
dimly lit, uneven stairs, the wounded king, Malcolm II., 
after having been treacherously attacked and mortally 
wounded by Kenneth V. and his adherents on the Hunter's 
Hill, about a mile from the Castle, was carried by his fol- 
lowers to die in the chamber that still bears the name of 
King Malcolm's room. This murder of King Malcolm is 
the first authentic event mentioned by the chroniclers in 
connection with Glamis. 

In the time of King Malcolm, Glamis was a royal resi- 
dence, and remained so till 1372, when Sir John Lyon, "a 
young man of very good parts and qualities, and of a very 
graceful and comely person, and a great favourite with the 
king " (Robert IL), was made Lord High Chamberlain of 



3^8 



■GLAMIS CASTLE 



Scotland. At that time the king's daughter, the Princess 
Jean, fell in love with this young knight, and was given 
him in marriage together with the lands of the thanedom 
of Glamis, '•'•pro laudahUi et fideli servitio et continu'is lahori- 
bus^' as the charter bears witness, March i8, 1372. Ten 
years later Sir John fell in a duel with Sir James Lindsay 
of Crawford, and was buried at Scone among the kings of 
Scotland. He left one son, from whom the present family 
of Lyon have descended without a break hon\ father to son 
to the present day. Fifty years later. Sir Patrick Lyon (Sir 
John's grandson), who was one of the hostages to the Eng- 
lish for the ransom of James L from 1424 to 1427, was 
created Baron Glamis, and appointed Master of the House- 
hold to the King of Scotland. For the next hundred years 
nothing of interest occurred till John, sixth Lord Glamis, 
married the beautiful Janet Douglas, granddaughter of the 
great Earl of Angus (Bell-the-Cat), and died in 1528. 
Lady Glamis married, secondly, Archibald Campbell, of 
Kepneith, whose relative, another Campbell, fell in love 
with her. Finding, however, that his addresses were but 
ill received by this lady, who was as good as she was lovely, 
his love turned to hate, and he revenged himself by inform- 
ing the authorities that Lady Glamis, her son. Lord Glamis, 
and John Lyon, his relative, were conspiring against the 
life of the king, James V., by poison or witchcraft. They 
were tried for high treason, and wrongfully convicted ! 
Lady Glamis and her young son were both sentenced to be 
burned^ and the estate of Glamis was forfeited and annexed 
to the Crown by Act of Parliament, December 3d, 1540. 



GLAMIS CASTLE 



319 



However, these brutal judges, on account of the extreme 
youth of Lord Glamis, feared to bring him to execution, so 
the boy was kept in prison, with the death sentence hang- 
ing over him, while the beautiful Lady Glamis was dragged 
forth and burned at the stake on the Castle Hill of Edin- 
burgh, July 17th, 1537. Those were days when acts of 
violence and cruelty were regarded with an indifference that 
we cannot now realize, although when she stood up in her 
beauty to undergo this fearful sentence, it is recorded that 
all heads were bowed in sorrowful sympathy. When this 
infamous execution was accomplished, remorse seems to 
have come over Campbell, who was visited by visions of 
his victim looking at him with sad, reproachful eyes. 
When, some years later, his death was drawing nigh, he 
confessed that his evidence at the trial was altogether false. 
Lord Glamis was therefore released from prison, and his 
estates and honours restored. 

To return to the Castle. The exterior is much orna- 
mented with ancient armorial bearings in carved stone, 
while a round niche over the front door contains a bust of 
Earl Patrick. The principal entrance is a striking feature. 
The doorway is small and low, and a stout iron-clenched 
oaken door, thickly studded with nails, is guarded on the 
inside by a heavily grated iron gate, which opens right on to 
the staircase. A flight of steps to the right of the entrance 
leads down to the dungeons, vaults, and the old well (now 
filled up) which supplied the inmates with water in times of 
siege ; while another stair to the left leads up to the Re- 
tainers' Hall (or Crypt as it is now called), low, and fifty 



320 



GLAMIS CASTLE 



feet in length, with walls and arched roof entirely composed 
of stone. Of the seven windows, which are small, four or 
five are cut out of the thickness of the walls, and make re- 
cesses just large enough to form small rooms, which might 
have been used as sleeping chambers in old days. Lay 
figures, clad in complete armour, stand in the recesses, 
which, especially in the dusk, give an eerie effect to this 
part of the Castle. It is said that a ghostly man in armour 
walks this floor at night — possibly the original of one of 
those armoured figures standing silently in the crypt year 
after year, who may, perchance, have ended his life in the 
dungeon that lies exactly underneath. 



T 



CHATEAU DE CHINON 

J. J. BOURRASSEE 

O the traveller who arrives at Chinon from the south 
or vv^est, the aspect of the old castle is imposing. 
What an effect it must have produced at the period 
of its full splendour ! Originally it was a fortress situated 
on an eminence commanding the course of the Vienne and 
the fertile plain of Veron. It might be regarded as the key 
of lower Touraine. Therefore we see the Romans, the 
Visigoths, the Franks, and, later, the Counts of Anjou and 
Touraine, the Kings of England and France sparing no 
efforts to secure its possession. In 462, Frederic, brother 
of Theodoric King of the Visigoths, having advanced as 
far as the banks of the Loire, seized the Castle of Chinon : 
up to that time the Romans had occupied it, and by its 
favourable position it had become the last citadel of their 
power in this part of Gaul. ^Egidius Afranius, the Roman 
governor of Gaul, hastened into Touraine to recover 
Chinon ; but he could not do it by force of arms. Des- 
pairing of carrying the place of assault, the Romans block- 
aded it. The defenders were at the last extremity from 
lack of water when a violent storm poured abundant rain 
within the ramparts. The Romans raised the siege and 
the Visigoths remained masters of the castle until the defeat 
of Alaric in the plains of Vouille. The conquering Clovis 



322 



CHATEAU DE CHIN ON 



understood the importance of this military post and made 
it one of the ramparts of his kingdom. 

The Frankish princes installed themselves there so well 
that no foe ever thought of disputing its possession with 
them. The Carlovingians were still its masters when 
feudalism transformed to the profit of the great barons the 
precarious title that they held by the confidence of the 
sovereign. Thibault the Trickster had Touraine as his 
share in this vast parcelling out of France. He had the 
Castle of Chinon repaired and often resided there, as in an 
impregnable fortress. Thibault's lot in the partition of the 
territory was not in the least an agreeable one, for he had to 
defend it against the envy of his neighbors. Touraine for 
about a century was a prey over which rival powers fought. 
In the end it remained with the strongest. The Count of 
Anjou became completely master of it after the battle of 
Nouy, fought on the heights of Montlouis in 1044. Even 
in the bosom of this powerful house there were quarrels 
over the possession of the Castle of Chinon. An unequal 
partition between GeofFroy le Barbu and Foulques le 
Rechin led to war between those two brothers. Abandoned 
and betrayed by his followers, Geoffroy was made prisoner 
and cast into the cells of the Castle of Chinon, where he 
remained closely immured for the space of eighteen years 
with such rigour that he almost lost his reason. Nothing 
less than the intervention of Pope Urban II. in 1096 was 
required to have him set at liberty. 

Thanks to a marriage, the house of Anjou mounted the 
throne of England and Chinon became a royal possession. 



chAteau de chin on 323 

Henry Plantagenet, great-grandson of Foulques le Rechin, 
brings this fine residence into new relief. Henry H. made 
it his favourite manor. He made it the seat of a royally 
privileged domain, comprising Cande, Champigny, La 
Haye, L'lle Bouchard, Saint Epain, Sainte Maure, Azay 
le Rideau and Bourgueil. Henry H. added to the Castle 
of Chinon a fortress distinct from the other buildings, with 
its own ramparts, moats, gates, drawbridges, buildings for 
the accommodation of the King, his court and his archers, 
and its church dedicated to St. George. From his donjon 
keep, the King of England ceaselessly laboured to increase 
his territory and his influence on the Continent. By 
means of his marriage with Eleanor of Guienne, repudiated 
by King Louis VH., he had become more powerful than 
his sovereign. It seems as if nothing could stay the course 
of such success, were it not for discord in his own family. 
At war with Philip Augustus, and with his own son the fa- 
mous Richard Cceur de Lion, the King of England retired 
to Chinon. Necessity compelled him to sign with the 
King of France the humiliating peace of Azay sur Cher. 
" Shame ! " he cried, " shame to the vanquished king ! 
Cursed be the day I was born ! Curses upon my two 
sons ! " This fit of fury sent him to the tomb, July 6, 
1189. He was carried without pomp to the Abbey of 
Fontevrault, near Chinon, where he had desired to be buried. 
Ten years later, another train took the same road : it was 
that of Richard Cceur de Lion. Being mortally wounded 
at the siege of Chaluz, that prince caused himself to be 
taken to Chinon, where he quickly succumbed in cruel 



24 CHATEAU DE CHIN ON 

agony. He was buried beside Henry H. in the Abbey of 
P'ontevrault, that celebrated house that has had as abbess 
fourteen princesses of the royal blood, and that had de- 
served the name of King's Cemetery. In an obscure corner 
are still to be seen the admirable statues of the counts of 
Anjou, masterpieces of the statuary at the close of the 
Twelfth Century. 

At that time, nothing presaged that the Castle of Chinon 
was to leave the hands of the Kings of England, when sud- 
denly a protracted cry of horror and indignation resounded 
through the world. John Lackland had just got rid of his 
nephew, Arthur of Brittany, by a cowardly murder at 
Rouen. Philip Augustus summoned the murderer to ap- 
pear before the court of the peers of the realm. After 
several adjournments regularly notified, the criminal, not 
having presented himself, was condemned to lose the fiefs 
held from the French crown. The sentence was easy to 
deliver, but not so easy to execute. The King of France 
hastened to Touraine at the head of an army and took 
possession of Tours, Loches and Chinon. 

It must be admitted that the Castle of Chinon was val- 
iantly defended ; it was carried by assault after an obstinate 
struggle in 1205. Philip Augustus gave it a good garrison. 
After that day, the English never set foot in it ; and when 
during our intestine discord they profited by treason and 
dominated many of our provinces, the Castle of Chinon 
was the last refuge of the monarchy. From there were 
struck all the blows that gave France back her in- 
dependence. 



chAteau de chinon 325 

Feudalism had greatly lessened the royal power. Noble 
efforts had been made to restore the authority that the king 
ought never to have lost. These attempts had produced 
memorable results ; but the great feudatories were discon- 
tented. They wanted to profit by the minority of Louis 
IX. and the regency of a woman to recover the power that 
had escaped them. Events called St. Louis and Queen 
Blanche to Chinon. The young king held a parliament of 
twenty days at the castle gates. The rebel lords refused to 
attend, but their plans were rendered abortive, thanks to 
the activity of Blanche of Castile. 

Philip Augustus had partly rebuilt the Castle of Chinon : 
the Thirteenth Century work is easily visible amid the later 
constructions. Under the reign of St. Louis, further works 
to render this fortress as a v^^hole more formidable were 
executed. 

In 1308, a great bustle was manifest in the Castle and 
town of Chinon : Jacques de Molay, Grand Master of the 
Order of the Templars, Hughes de Peraldo, Visitor of 
France, and the Commanders of Cyprus, Aquitaine and 
Normandy had just been brought in. Other Knights of 
the same Order had already been confined there. They 
were all to be taken to Poictiers where were Pope Clement 
V. and Philippe le Bel, King of France ; but several of 
them had fallen ill on the road, so the sovereign pontiff 
deputed three cardinals to proceed with the investigation at 
Chinon. Every one knows the result of these grave pro- 
ceedings : the Order of the Templars was suppressed, and 
those who were prisoners at Chinon only left their cells to 



226 chAteau de chin on 

go to the stake at Paris. They had confessed their crimes 
in the question to which they had been put ; but most of 
them retracted amidst the flames. This frightful execution 
took place in 13 13. 

Towards the end of the Fourteenth Century, Charles 
VI. ceded the duchy of Touraine and the county of 
Chinon to his brother Louis, Duke of Orleans, who was 
afterwards assassinated by order of John the Fearless, 
Duke of Burgundy. This period recalls the most mourn- 
ful memories of our history. Our land was ravaged by 
bands of English, skilful to profit by our dissensions. At 
last the hour of deliverance has arrived. France will now 
see more prosperous days ; and Charles VII., the Victorious, 
will stretch his sceptre over the territory formerly subject 
to his ancestor. 

Charles VII. established his court at Chinon. Joan of 
Arc came to see him there and to inaugurate her extraordi- 
nary mission beneath the castle arches. Everybody knows 
the details of the heroine's arrival at Chinon : how she 
recognized the disguised king in the midst of his courtiers, 
revealed a secret known only to himself and God, showed 
herself full of confidence in the cause that she was to make 
triumphant and finally succeeded in inspiring the hearts of 
others with the enthusiasm that overflowed her own. 

Thus the first public deeds of the providential mission of 
Joan of Arc are connected with Chinon. At this moment, 
Charles VII. had by his side another woman of generous 
heart and strong spirit : this was the queen, Marie of 
Anjou. Her influence was greater than historians have 



chAteau de chinon 327 

recognized ; it was much more salutary and efficacious than 
that of Agnes Sorel. When the latter appeared at Chinon 
for the first time before the eyes of Charles VII., it was 
already six months since Joan of Arc had gone to the stake 
at Rouen. Is not that enough for us to say that France 
had already been saved and that the advice and remon- 
strances of Agnes Sorel came too late ? 

However that may be, the presence of Agnes Sorel at 
the court of Chinon was insupportable to the Dauphin, 
afterwards Louis XL He even made it a pretext for a 
conspiracy against his father. These designs of an unnat- 
ural son did not succeed, but they poisoned the King's last 
years. 

In 1461, Charles VII. died at Mehun sur Yevre, and 
Louis XL succeeded to the throne. Louis XL took up his 
abode by preference at the Castle of Plessis-lez-Tours : he 
often came to Chinon. It was in the environs of that 
town, at the Castle of Forges, that he felt the first attack 
of the malady that carried him ofF. Philippe de Commines, 
Seigneur d'Argenton, governor of the Castle of Chinon, 
informs us how this accident, which was nothing less than 
an attack of apoplexy, came upon him. 

In the very year of the death of Louis XL a famous 
personage in buffoon literature was born at Chinon. 
Francois Rabelais is the most cynical of writers, and if, as 
some people assert, he tried to hide his philosophy beneath 
the masque of folly, it must be acknowledged that he suc- 
ceeded. 

After the reign of Louis XL, the Castle of Chinon was 



328 chAteau de chinon 

very little frequented by the court. Catherine de'Medici 
was there in 1560, and the Duke of Anjou, afterwards 
Henri III. appeared there at the head of his army, march- 
ing against the Reformers, who were to be so rudely chas- 
tised in the plains of Montoncour. 

In 1629, the Princess de Conti, who possessed Chinon 
by virtue of an exchange of property with Henry of 
Lorraine, Duke of Chevreuse, sold the castle with all its 
dependencies to Cardinal Richelieu. The sale gave the 
signal, so to speak, for the demolition of the royal castle of 
the Plantagenets and French monarchs. When the Revo- 
lution, that piled up so many ruins arrived, it found noth- 
ing more to do here. 

The remains of the old manor are still gigantic. Those 
high walls, dismantled curtains, crenellated masonry, and 
discrowned turrets harbour glorious memories ; but it is not 
always easy to distinguish what belongs to each century, or 
clearly to discern the work of the Romans or the Visigoths, 
of Thibault the Trickster, Henry II., Philip Augustus, 
Charles VII., or Louis XL The greater part of these 
ruins, however, is characteristic of the Fifteenth Century. 
Scarcely anything remains intact except the belfry tower, 
now called the Tour de ? Horloge^ twenty to twenty-five 
meters in height. These picturesque ruins belong to the 
town of Chinon, having been left to it by the house of 
Richelieu. 



THE SUMMER PALACE 
MAURICE PALEOLOGUE 

THE last time that I saw the Imperial Palace of Pekin 
was on a morning in the last of April. The air 
was fresh and limpid, and the vault of heaven seemed to 
have lifted itself to a prodigious height. It was not that 
somewhat misty atmosphere of spring in France, which 
seems impregnated with damp and vegetable odours, and 
which bathes the unstable outlines of objects ; neither was 
it that tenuous light of those mornings in the East that 
overspreads the distances, envelops objects, and defines 
their planes. It was a very dry air, for five months had 
passed since a drop of rain had fallen, with an almost 
brutal clearness which seemed to bring the horizon nearer 
and which harshly exhibited the forms of the buildings and 
the lines of the landscape. 

I went out very early, and the windings of my course 
took me to the Imperial City, one of the three cities that 
compose the capital of the Middle Kingdom. The streets 
differed in appearance from those of the quarters I had just 
traversed, the shops became rarer, the roadways wider, and 
the temples and palaces closer together. But at this early 
hour there was still greater animation here, and a crowd of 
horsemen, pedestrians, and carriages made passage difficult. 

I was about to turn in order to return to the French 



33° 



THE SUMMER PALACE 



Legation, when a cart, peculiarly constructed upon two 
wheels placed almost at the back, and escorted by two 
horsemen, made my horse stand aside ; it was a Tartar 
carriage from the court stables : a black mule harnessed 
with yellow leather and led by a groom, also in yellow liv- 
ery, drew it along with great strides. 

In front, visible between the open curtains, a young 
woman was seated with her legs crossed beneath her. She 
was clothed in a large mantle of salmon-pink silk bordered 
with blue and gold lace and ornamented down the front 
and on the sleeves with clusters of flowers embroidered 
with very delicate brilliancy and delicious harmony of col- 
our. This vestment almost entirely covered her gown of a 
pale and dead green that fell in folds about her. 

Her hair, gathered up on the top of her head, was di- 
vided in two thick folds, crossed here and there by long 
pins of gold, surmounted by butterflies of silver filagree, 
and artificial flowers of the strangest forms and hues. 
Also, as is customary among ladies of quality, her face was 
entirely painted with ceruse ; but the cheeks and the dimple 
of the chin and the lips were coated with a thick layer of 
carmine, while a line of antimony immoderately lengthened 
her eyes out towards the temples, and two black mouches 
stuck near the cheek-bone, gave a peculiar appearance, a 
sort of air of morbid coquetry, to this depressing face in 
which life seemed to have been extinguished. 

She held herself in a paralyzed immobility, with a hebe- 
tated fixity of gaze and a doubtful glimmer of intelligence, 
oscillating like a waxen puppet or an idol in a procession, 



THE SUMMER PALACE ^^I 

at each jolt of the carriage. She was, doubtless, judging 
from the livery of the driver and the escorting horsemen, a 
young Tartar lady of the court, one of the Empress's 
maids of honour, or one of the imperial princesses shut up 
in the Palace. 

I set out to follow her at a distance. Her chariot as- 
cended the inclined plane of a bridge, the flooring of which 
was of marble ; the balustrade, also of marble, supported 
some sculptured dragons. 

Beneath the arches, the waters of a lake glittered. The 
light of the sun, still near the horizon, barely touched the 
liquid surface but spread its brilliancy everywhere else. In 
certain spots, lotus flowers blossomed and made the lake 
look like a meadow floating upon the clear and sleeping 
waters. It was the " Golden Lake," a dependency of the 
Imperial Palace, whose high walls and golden roofs could 
be seen in the background. 

Light buildings, such as kiosks and temples, reached to 
the shore. The vast number of these roofs assumed rosy 
hues and the slightest details of their complicated architec- 
ture stood out clearly, looking in the liquid air that envel- 
oped them, elegant, graceful and fresh amid the apricot 
trees and blossoming mimosas that covered the banks. 

North China was, in fact, just emerging from her long 
winter's mourning, and the impression given by that spring- 
tide picture of earth's new awakening was exquisite. 

The Tartar chariot continued to advance with the rapid 
steps of its mule : it was now passing at the foot of an 
artificial hill, planted with green trees, at the summit of 



332 



THE SUMMER PALACE 



which rose a Buddhist obelisk that stood out almost harshly 
against the blue of the sky. 

But along the shore of the lake, the tints had already be- 
come deeper, and the lines less sharp. The kiosks, the 
pavilions, and the temples that rose upon the banks ex- 
hibited the original type of Chinese buildings, a canvas tent 
with turned up corners. The extreme profusion of orna- 
mental details did not succeed in hiding the poverty of the 
original conception : dragons, chimeras, phoenixes, and tor- 
toises, an entire fabulous and fantastic zoology of sculp- 
tured wood or terra cotta, surcharged the ridge-poles ; 
figurines and painted flowers of clay weighed down the 
cornices, the larmiers, and the pediments ; gaudy colors 
made a motley mixture upon the capitals of the columns 
and the architraves ; but beneath this bristling and unre- 
strained decoration, you always found the absolute and in- 
variable type that China has uniformly adopted at every 
epoch of her history and throughout her entire empire. 

However, I had by this time arrived at the fortified en- 
closure of the palace. High above me a rampart reared 
Itself, thirty feet high and surrounded by a wide moat. At 
regular intervals, towers with turned-up roofs jutted out 
over this line of stone which extended so far that it seemed 
to shut in an entire city. A few trees had crossed the 
sloping wall, and the shadows of their branches spread over 
the dark and stagnant waters of the moat. 

A large gateway, surmounted by an enormous square 
tower, gave access to the interior of the palace, and three 
gigantic black letters engraved upon a golden panel at the 



THE SUMMER PALACE 



333 



summit of the tower seemed a mysterious inscription 
placed at the threshold of an unknown world. 

And at the moment when the Tartar carriage became 
engulfed under the arch and was lost in the Imperial en- 
closure, I experienced still more powerfully the impression 
that I had received three years before in Morocco in front 
of the palace of the Sultan Moulay-Hassan. There also, 
in the old city of Islam shining in the sunlight, I had felt 
myself transported into the midst of a new world, but I saw 
the barriers broken down, I was able to pass through the 
great pointed doorways of Dar-el-Mechouar, and the 
Court of the Scherifs was opened before me, as a scene of 
fairy-land or dreamland unfolds in a dazzling brilliancy of 
light and colour. 

Here, on the contrary, everything remained closed and 
impenetrable. 

However, the topography of the palace was not entirely 
unknown to me ; I had already studied the plan made by 
the Jesuit missionaries who visited It in the Eighteenth 
Century, and, indeed, from the heights of the ramparts of 
the Tartar village, I had been able to recognize the general 
arrangement and distinguish the regular succession of its 
rectangular court-yards and gardens containing forty-eight 
enormous palaces and about the same number of pavilions, 
kiosks, arches and gateways. 

Only the tops of the principal buildings rose above the 
surrounding wall and into the clumps of verdure. Very 
far away, in the south, near the " Gate of Eternal Purity," 
I perceived the temple of the ancestors of the dynasty of 



334 



THE SUMMER PALACE 



Ta-Thsing now reigning, where the Emperor comes at 
stated dates to accomplish the sacred rites of the official 
cult. 

Then nearer, three buildings, taller than the rest, stood 
in a row, and the sculptured dragons on the ridge-poles 
and the glazed tiles on the roofs were resplendent in the 
sunlight : these were the three palaces of the " Sovereign 
Concord, Medium Concord, and Protective Concord," 
where the Sovereign attends to the affairs of state and 
traces with his vermilion-steeped pencil the characters 
that express his decisions and that are laws venerated as the 
figured and material form of the Imperial will. There, 
every morning at two o'clock, the Emperor presides at the 
Grand Council of the Middle Kingdom; five ministers 
only have access to it. There, no matter what their age or 
fatigue, they must remain standing the whole time, or bow 
their foreheads to the ground when, from his throne, a 
stage of gilded wood raised six feet above the floor, the Son 
of Heaven addresses them. During the minority of the 
sovereigns, as is the case with the present Emperor, the 
Empress Regent is present also in the council, but she is 
not considered as there, and a screen of yellow silk hides 
her from all eyes. 

Then I saw a confused mass of houses of imperial 
princes, Manchus, chamberlains, daughters of Emperors 
married to Mongol princes and immured in the palace until 
their death, wives of the second degree and concubines of 
the deceased sovereigns, ladies of honour, mistresses of 
ceremonies, and eunuchs, an entire population, a wisely 



THE SUMMER PALACE 335 

arranged hierarchy amounting to more than eight thousand 
persons. Towards the east, in the dazzling sunlight, ap- 
peared also the barracks of the three banners of the guard, 
the treasury, the shops of porcelain, silver, and silk, orna- 
ments, garments, tea, religious objects destined for the Son 
of Heaven, and manufactories where things are prepared 
for his exclusive use ; the armoury, the stables, the Im- 
perial library where the oldest annals of the world are kept, 
the " Pavilion of the Literary Flowers," whither the Em- 
peror repairs in the second moon of the year to interpret 
the sacred books ; and the temple of the Tchouan-sin-tien 
where the sacrifices to the memory of Confucius and the 
great philosophers are performed. 

Finally, very near me, behind the gardens that ran albng 
the length of the wall of the enclosure, I caught a glimpse 
of the " Palace of the Superior Terrestrial Element," which 
recalled the memory of that unfortunate Empress Aluteh, 
who died in 1875 at the age of eighteen. She was the 
daughter of a Manchu prince. When very young, barely 
fifteen years, a decree proclaiming her for the Emperor 
tossed her brusquely into the Court of Pekin from her 
province in Tartary, and shut her up in the palace which 
she was to leave only with her life. On November 16, 
1872, at midnight, she entered in bridal toilette through 
the " Gate of Celestial Purity " : she wore a robe of red 
silk embroidered with dragon and phoenix, a large scarlet 
veil enveloped her from head to foot. Three years later she 
went out dead through the " Flowered Gate of the East " : 
she had killed herself on learning of the death of her hus- 



33^ 



THE SUMMER PALACE 



band, the Emperor Tong-Tche : an unusual luxury was 
lavished upon her funeral procession, and embroideries of 
pale blue silk upon white satin embossed with gold covered 
her coffin. 

However, the hour was advancing ; the meeting of the 
Council was over; the couriers of state were departing for 
the provinces ; the great mandarins came out of the palace, 
and after making interminable bows, got into their chariots, 
and I returned to the French Legation. 



BERKELEY CASTLE 

ARTHUR SHADWELL MARTIN 

FOR sylvan beauty and pastoral loveliness there is no 
fairer countryside in all England than the broad 
domains of which the old feudal stronghold of the Berkeleys 
is the centre. A mile to the westward, the Severn's broad 
flood sweeps slowly to the Bristol Channel, only twenty 
miles away. Five miles or so to the eastward, the last 
spurs of the Cotswold Hills sink to the level of the plain. 
There is Stinchcomb Hill with its flat bare top dotted 
with the white tents of its summer camp. Beautiful Durs- 
ley lies in a neighbouring hollow. Nibley Knoll, where 
begin the beeches of Westridge Woods, amid which are 
the earthworks of a Roman or Saxon fort, can be easily 
distinguished by the column by Teulon that rises about one 
hundred feet to commemorate the part William Tyndale 
took in the Reformation. The little valleys running into 
these hills (locally called bottoms) hear the call of spring 
long before the uplands, and along the margins of their 
streams the snowdrops wake to nod graciously at their re- 
fleeted beauty ; and then, before the Westridge Woods are 
clothed in green, among the shielding trunks the primrose 
spreads a cloth of gold above the last year's leaves. 

This whole district is thronged with historic memories ; 
many a Norman cross and church lies within a circuit of 



338 



BERKELEY CASTLE 



twelve miles' radius. Tortworth Court is close at hand. 
A few miles down across the river, stands mighty Chepstow 
with the Wye washing her ruined v</alls ; but Berkeley is 
still intact and inhabited after seven centuries' assault by 
Time and civil strife. This is what renders Berkeley 
so remarkable among English castles : it retains its ancient 
shell, and it has always been owned and inhabited by a lineal 
descendant of the original owner and builder. 

The " Faire Vale of Berkeley " was always famous for 
its beauty and fertility. William of Malmesbury describes 
it as " rich in corn, productive in fruits . . . enticing 
even the lazy to industry by the prospect of a hundredfold 
return. . . . Neither has any county in England more 
numerous or richer vineyards . . . the wine is but 
little inferior to that of France in sweetness." The vine- 
yards have long disappeared, and the only vines now seen 
are those that beautify the walls and frame the latticed 
casements of the cottages. 

In Domesday Book, Berkeley appears as a royal demesne 
and borough : one of the trees mentioned as a boundary of 
the hundred is still pointed out in the Deer Park, and 
known as King William's Oak. The Conqueror gave the 
manor to Roger de Berkeley who erected the Keep about 
1093. At first this was only a military hold to keep the 
neighbourhood in check, but buildings were gradually added 
till the castle assumed its present form and the lord took up 
his residence here under Coeur de Lion, a century later. 

Situated on a little rise, its strong battlements and towers 
look across the tops of the beautiful trees that now shade 



BERKELEY CASTLE 339 

its useless moat, and the visitor enjoys a lovely view in 
every direction. Situated midway between Gloucester and 
Bristol, the baron, predatory doubtless as was the custom 
of the age, was in a fine position to levy toll on merchant 
caravans that must pass through the vale. The form of 
the castle Is that of an irregular circle. The drawbridge 
leads to a portcuUised gateway in massive walls between 
two hexagonal towers. The donjon is a square tower 
with turrets at the angles, built on higher ground than the 
other constructions to dominate the rest of the castle. It 
was erected in 1342. It is called Thorpe's tower after the 
family who held lands in tenure from the lord in return for 
acting as its warders. The strong keep also still stands 
and shows the warder's walk fifty-eight feet in length, in 
perfect preservation. The dimensions of the great hall are 
forty-eight by thirty-three feet. Its great chimney is 
adorned with mediaeval armour and antlers. The ancient 
kitchen and other offices still exist, and so does the chapel 
with its Decorated style of architecture. The sacrarium is 
of special interest since it is divided into two floors, each 
with a separate entrance and fire-place, the lower for the 
use of the retainers and the upper, or Oriel, for the family 
and guests. The living-rooms contain many pictures by 
famous masters, and some historic furniture. Among the 
latter, are some ebony chairs and a table that Drake brought 
home from the Spanish Main. 

Rich as the castle is in antiquarian remains, however, the 
interest of these walls is multiplied a hundredfold by their 
historical associations. When we take our stand on the 



340 



BERKELEY CASTLE 



summit of the Donjon and look around and below us, 
what memories are evoked ! When we recall the history 
of the family, we cannot but marvel that the ancient line is 
still in possession ; for a turbulent race were the Berkeleys, 
and often arrayed against the Crown. Roger de Berkeley 
joined Stephen against the granddaughter of his father's 
benefactor, and therefore Henry Fitz-Empress confiscated 
his fief, and conferred it upon Robert FItz-Harding, Gov- 
ernor of Bristol, of royal Danish descent, at the same time 
making him a baron. The latter's son, however, married 
Roger's heiress, and thus the Berkeleys were restored in 
their son Maurice. Robert, the son of the latter, joined 
the barons against John, who seized the castle, and was 
there in the last year of his reign. However, Robert's 
brother Thomas managed to get it restored, in 1233, by 
Henry HI. Maurice, the son of Thomas, was in rebellion 
with Simon de Montfort twenty-five years later, and, as a 
result, Berkeley was again confiscated. His son Thomas 
served Edward I., the " Hammer of the Scots," so well in 
the North that he got back his ancestral honours and 
domains and was summoned to Parliament as Baron Berke- 
ley in 1295. This lord and his son and grandson were rich 
and powerful, and all the beautiful " Edwardian " stone- 
work is of this period. Much of the older work was 
cleared away for the new buildings of the loveliest style of 
English Gothic. But what a deed of violence was perpe- 
trated in the narrow chamber in the adjoining building below 
us ! We have reached the dark memory that above all else 
enshrouds Berkeley. The eff^eminate king who lost Ban- 



BERKELEY CASTLE 



341 



nockburn and handed over the reins of government to the 
unworthy Gaveston and De Spencers, decimating the Eng- 
lish baronage at their behests, and revelling in Oriental vice 
and ferocity, finally succumbed to his wife and her paramour 
at Kenilworth early in 1327. The Lord of Berkeley now 
was Thomas, the grandson of the favourite of Edward I. 
To him and to two knights named John Maltravers and 
Thomas de Gournay was entrusted the custody of the 
dethroned Edward II. The two latter removed their captive 
secretly and treated him with every indignity : they crowned 
him with a crown of hay and shaved him with ditch-water 
along the way. A circumstantial account tells how he said 
therefore he would supply his own hot water with tears ! 
On Palm Sunday, Baron Thomas received him kindly and 
treated him with consideration, whereupon he received a 
reprimand from Queen Isabel, bidding him " use no 
familiarity with Edward, the late king ; " and so, fearing 
for himself, he " departed with heavy cheere, perceiving 
what violence was intended." Lovely as was the view 
from his window, the long summer from April to Septem- 
ber brought no joy to the prisoner. The Berkeley MS. 
says that " this poor, foolish king did nothing but lament 
for his wife, singing love-songs in a low voice and grieving 
that she would neither see him nor permit his son or any of 
his relatives to come near him. The Queen was afraid 
that the Church would compel her to live with him again, 
and therefore urged his death." At first, his keepers tried 
to ruin his health by piling putrid carcases in the pit below 
his chamber; then they kept him half-starved and half-clad. 



342 



BERKELEY CASTLE 



Yet the Queen reproved them for excessive clemency ! 
Marlowe quotes the historian in noble verse when Edward 
complains : 

" In mire and puddle I have stood 
This ten days' space; and, lest that I should sleep. 
One plays continually upon a drum. 
They give me bread and water, being a king. 
So that, for want of sleep and sustenance. 
My mind's distempered and my body's numbed. . 
O, would my blood dropped out from every vein. 
As doth this water from my tattered robes. 
Tell Isabel, the queen, I looked not thus. 
When for her sake I ran at tilt in France, 
And there unhorsed the Duke of Cleremont ! " 

The night of September 22nd heard the shrieks of the 
tortured king : that they reached the ears of people in the 
town, who crossed themselves and prayed for the passing 
soul, is doubtless a statement due to the historian's sympathy, 
for the walls are thick. In the morning, the citizens of 
Bristol were called to gaze upon the distorted features of 
their dead king, who otherwise bore no sign of violence. 
All were afraid to bury Isabel's victim, till the Abbot of 
Gloucester bravely undertook the task. The next year 
Isabel and Mortimer actually visited Berkeley, and were 
entertained by its wealthy lord. The latter kept twelve 
knights to wait upon him, each of whom was served by two 
servants and a page. He also had twenty-four esquires, 
each of whom had a horse and an attendant. There were 
about three hundred in his household who fed at his board. 



BERKELEY CASTLE 



343 



The Lord of Berkeley was a mighty baron in those days. 
The blame had to be shifted, however, and so he was 
brought to an irregular trial before twelve knights, instead 
of his peers : he was finally acquitted of complicity in 
the crime in 1330. In that year, his son and successor, 
Maurice, was born. He fought in Granada and Gascony, 
and was so desperately wounded at Poictiers in 1366 that 
he died at Berkeley two years later. His son Thomas was 
also a warrior who unfurled his banner in Spain, France 
and Scotland. He entertained Richard II. at Berkeley in 
1386, but this did not prevent his voting for Richard's 
deposition in favour of Bolingbroke in 1399. 

The direct male line fails soon after this and the Berke- 
ley heiress marries a Talbot. A collateral branch comes 
in and the descendants have rival claims and start what is 
usually called the longest lawsuit on record : it is not finally 
settled till 1609. In the course of this suit, occurs the 
last battle that was fought between independent noblemen 
in England. Lord Lisle of Wotton, the grandson of 
the great Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury, claims Berkeley 
which is held by William, a fiery youth of nineteen. 
(Wotton-under-Edge lies under the edge of the hills three 
miles beyond Nibley Knoll.) On March 22nd, 1470, the 
Viscount sends a challenge to Berkeley to settle all differ- 
ences by combat : it is eagerly accepted. There was bustle 
in the castle that night. The meeting was at Nibley 
Green. Long Lane still preserves memories of how the 
men of Berkeley chased the men of Wotton into the 
churchyard till the grass was heavy with crimson dew. 



344 



BERKELEY CASTLE 



Berkeley far outnumbered Lisle ; moreover the latter were 
taken as they were marching unawares, and an arrow en- 
tered their leader's open visor and a dagger afterwards fin- 
ished him. The victors proceed to Wotton and sacked 
Lisle's house. His widow gave premature birth to a dead 
son amid the carnage, and the Lisle claims were ended. 
The Wars of the Roses were still raging and a little affair 
of that kind passed unnoticed. 

Margaret of Anjon rested once at Berkeley in her cam- 
paigning. Richard IIL created Viscount Berkeley an Earl, 
but, true to his race, he went over. When Henry of 
Richmond landed at Milford Haven, Berkeley joined him 
and, to spite his heir, made over'to him his castle and do- 
mains. After Bosworth, Henry created him a Marquess, 
but his avarice induced him to keep the property. In de- 
fault of heirs male, however, on the death of Edward H., 
it lapsed to the Berkeley heirs again. The new lord of 
Berkeley was a mighty hunter and delighted in his beautiful 
deer park. On one of her progresses. Good Queen Bess 
paid him a visit. He happened to be absent, but his veni- 
son proved useful in victualling the courtly following. 
Everybody knows what it cost to entertain that locust- 
swarm ! When Lord Henry returned, he was greatly en- 
raged at the havoc, and ordered his park to be disparked 
rather than let it be a future temptation. Elizabeth heard 
of this and sent him a quiet hint to " beware of his words 
and actions, for the Earl of Leicester greatly desired the 
castle for himself!" One of the rooms in this "Naboth's 
vineyard " is still called Queen Elizabeth's room. Other 



BERKELEY CASTLE 



345 



royal guests who have visited the castle are George IV. and 
William IV. 

The Earls of Berkeley no longer own their ancestral 
home, in fact they maintain that the title is not rightfully 
theirs. This celebrated romance of the peerage started 
with the fifth Earl. Some of his children were born be- 
fore the only marriage he could prove to the satisfaction of 
the House of Lords, though he maintained that he and the 
lady had previously gone through a secret marriage cere- 
mony. The Earl left the castle and estates to his eldest 
son, and the Crown created him Baron Fitzhardinge. The 
late Earl of Berkeley never took his seat in the House of 
Lords nor assumed his title in any way since the decision 
that set the baton sinister in the escutcheon of the elder 
sons of the fifth Earl. 



THE CASTLE OF CHILLON 

NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 

FURTHER onward we saw a white, ancient-looking 
group of towers, beneath a mountain, which was so 
high, and rushed so precipitately down upon this pile of 
building as quite to dwarf it; besides which, its dingy 
whiteness had not a very picturesque effect. Nevertheless, 
this was the Castle of Chillon. It appears to sit right upon 
the water, and does not rise very loftiljs above it. I was 
disappointed in its aspect, having imagined this famous 
castle as situated upon a rock, a hundred, or for aught I 
know, a thousand feet above the surface of the lake ; but 
it is quite as impressive a fact — supposing it to be true — 
that the water is eight hundred feet deep at its base. By 
this time, the mountains had taken the beautiful lake into 
their deepest heart; they girdled it quite round with their 
grandeur and beauty, and, being able to do no more for it, 
they here withheld it from extending any farther; and here 
our voyage came to an end. I have never beheld any 
scene so exquisite ; nor do I ask of Heaven to show me 
any lovelier or nobler one, but only to give me such depth 
and breadth of sympathy with nature, that I may worthily 
enjoy this. It is beauty more than enough for poor, perish- 
able mortals. If this be earth, what must Heaven be ! 
It was nearly eight o'clock when we arrived ; and then 



THE CASTLE OF CHILLON 



347 



we had a walk of at least a mile to the Hotel Byron. I 
had forgot to mention that in the latter part of our voyage 
there was a shower in some part of the sky, and though 
none of it fell upon us, we had the benefit of those gentle 
tears in a rainbow, which arched itself across the lake from 
mountain to mountain, so that our track lay directly under 
this triumphal arch. We took it as a good omen, nor were 
we discouraged, though, after the rainbow had vanished, a 
few sprinkles of the shower came down. 

We found the Hotel Byron very grand indeed, and a 
good one, too. There was a beautiful moonlight on the 
lake and hills, but we contented ourselves with looking out 
of our lofty window, whence, likewise, we had a sidelong 
glimpse at the white battlements of Chillon, not more than 
a mile ofF, on the water's edge. The castle is wofully in 
need of a pedestal. If its site were elevated to a height 
equal to its own it would make a far better appearance. As 
it now is, it looks, so to speak profanely of what poetry has 
consecrated, when seen from the water, or along the shore 
of the lake, very like an old whitewashed factory or mill. 

This morning I walked to the Castle of Chillon with 

J , who sketches everything he sees, from a wild flower 

to a castle or a range of mountains. The morning had 
sunshine thinly scattered through it ; but, nevertheless, 
there was a continual sprinkle, sometimes scarcely percept- 
ible, and then again amounting to a decided drizzle. The 
road, which is built along on a little elevation above the lake 
shore, led us past the Castle of Chillon ; and we took a 
side-path, which passes still nearer the castle-gate. The 



348 



THE CASTLE OF CHILLON 



castle stands on an isthmus of gravel, permanently connect- 
ing it with the mainland. A wooden bridge covered with 
a roof, passes from the shore to the arched entrance ; and 
beneath this shelter, which has wooden walls as well as roof 
and floor, we saw a soldier or gendarme^ who seemed to act 
as warder. As it sprinkled rather more freely than at first, 
I thought of appealing to his hospitality for shelter from the 
rain, but concluded to pass on. 

The castle makes a far better appearance on a nearer 
view, and from the land, than when seen at a distance and 
from the water. It is built of stone, and seems to have 
been anciently covered with plaster, which imparts the white- 
ness to which Byron does much more than justice, when he 
speaks of " Chillon's snow-white battlements." There is 
a lofty eternal wall, with a cluster of round towers about it, 
each crowned with its pyramidal roof of tiles, and from the 
central portion of the castle rises a square tower, also 
crowned with its own pyramid to a considerably greater 
height than the circumjacent ones. The whole are in a 
close cluster, and make a fine picture of ancient strength 
when seen at a proper proximity ; for I do not think that 
distance adds anything to the effect. There are hardly any 
windows, or few, and very small ones, except the loopholes 
for arrows and for the garrison of the castle to peep from 
on the sides towards the water; indeed, there are larger 
windows at least in the upper apartments; but in that di- 
rection, no doubt, the castle was considered impregnable. 
Trees here and there on the land side grow up against the 
castle wall, on one part of which, moreover, there was a 



THE CASTLE OF CHILLON 



349 



green curtain of ivy spreading from base to battlement. 
The walls retain their machicolations, and I should judge 
that nothing had been altered, nor any more work been done 
upon the old fortress than to keep it in singularly good re- 
pair. It was formerly a castle of the Duke of Savoy, and 
since his sway over the country ceased (three hundred years 
at least), it has been in the hands of the Swiss government, 
who still keep some arms and ammunition there. 

We passed on, and found the view of it better, as we 
thought, from a farther point along the road. The rain- 
drops began to spatter down faster, and we took shelter 
under an impending precipice, where the ledge of rock had 
been blasted and hewn away to form the road. Our refuge 
was not a very convenient and comfortable one, so we took 
advantage of the partial cessation of the shower to turn 
homeward, but we had not gone far when we met mamma 
and all her train. As we were close by the castle entrance, 
we thought it advisable to seek admission, though rather 
doubtful whether the Swiss gendarmes might not deem it a 
sin to let us into the castle on Sunday. But he very read- 
ily admitted us under his covered drawbridge, and called an 
old man from within the fortress to show us whatever was 
to be seen. This latter personage was a staid, rather grim, 
and Calvinistic-looking old worthy ; but he received us 
without scruple, and forthwith proceeded to usher us into a 
range of the most dismal dungeons, extending along the 
basement of the castle, on a level with the surface of the 
lake. First, if I remember aright, we came to what he said 
had been a chapel, and which, at all events, looked like an 



350 



THE CASTLE OF CHILLON 



aisle of one, or rather such a crypt as I have seen beneath 
a cathedral, being a succession of massive pillars supporting 
groined arches, — a very admirable piece of Gothic archi- 
tecture. Next, we came to a very dark compartment of 
the same dungeon range, where he pointed to a sort of bed, 
or what might serve for a bed, hewn in the solid rock, and 
this, our guide said, had been the last sleeping-place of con- 
demned prisoners on the night before their execution. The 
next compartment was still duskier and dismaller than the 
last, and he bade us cast our eyes up into the obscurity and 
see a beam, where the condemned ones used to be hanged. 
I looked and looked, and closed my eyes so as to see the 
clearer in this horrible duskiness on opening them again. 
Finally, I thought I discerned the accursed beam, and the 
rest of the party were certain that they saw it. Next, be- 
yond this, I think, was a stone staircase, steep, rudely cut 
and narrow, down which the condemned were brought to 
death ; and beyond this, still on the same basement range of 
the castle, a low and narrow [corridor] through which we 
passed, and saw a row of seven massive pillars, supporting 
two parallel series of groined arches, like those in the 
chapel which we first entered. This was Bonnivard's 
prison, and the scene of Byron's poem. 

The arches are dimly lighted by narrow loopholes, 
pierced through the immensely thick wall, but at such a 
height above the floor that we could catch no glimpse of 
land or water, or scarcely of the sky. The prisoner of 
Chillon could not possibly have seen the island to which 
Byron alludes, and which is a little way from the shore, ex- 



THE CASTLE OF CHILLON 



351 



actly opposite the town of Villeneuve. There was light 
enough in this long, grey, vaulted room, to show us that all 
the pillars were inscribed with the names of visitors, among 
which I saw no interesting one, except that of Byron him- 
self, which is cut, in letters an inch long or more, into one 
of the pillars next to that to which Bonnivard was chained. 
The letters are deep enough to remain in the pillar as long 
as the castle stands. Byron seems to have had a fancy for 
recording his name in this and similar ways ; as witness the 
record which I saw on a tree of Newstead Abbey. In Bon- 
nivard's pillar there still remains an iron ring, at the height 
of perhaps three feet from the ground. His chain was 
fastened to this ring, and his only freedom was to walk 
round this pillar, about which he is said to have worn a 
path in the stone pavement of the dungeon ; but as the 
floor is now covered with earth of gravel, I could not 
satisfy myself whether this be true. Certainly six years 
with nothing else to do in them save to walk round the pil- 
lar, might well suffice to wear away the rock, even with 
naked feet. This column and all the columns, were cut 
and hewn in a good style of architecture, and the dungeon 
arches are not without a certain gloomy beauty. On Bon- 
nivard's pillar, as well as on all the rest, were many names 
inscribed ; but I thought better of Byron's delicacy and 
sensitiveness for not cutting his name into that very pillar. 
Perhaps, knowing nothing of Bonnivard's story, he did not 
know to which column he was chained. 

Emerging from the dungeon-vaults, our guide led us 
through other parts of the castle, showing us the Duke of 



352 



THE CASTLE OF CHILLON 



Savoy's kitchen, with a fireplace at least twelve feet long; 
also the judgment-hall, or some such place, hung round 
with the coats-of-arms of some officers or other, and having 
at one end a wooden post, reaching from floor to ceiling, 
and having upon it the marks of fire. By means of this 
post contumacious prisoners were put to a dreadful torture, 
being drawn up by cords and pulleys, while their limbs 
were scorched by a fire underneath. We also saw a chapel 
or two, one of which is still in good and sanctified con- 
dition, and was to be used this very day, our guide told us, 
for religious purposes. We saw, moreover, the Duke's 
private chamber, with a part of the bedstead on which he 
used to sleep, and be haunted with horrible dreams, no 
doubt, and the ghosts of wretches whom he had tortured and 
hanged ; likewise the bedchamber of his duchess, that had 
in its window two stone seats, where, directly over the head 
of Bonnivard, the ducal pair might look out on the beauti- 
ful scene of lake and mountains, and feel the warmth of the 
blessed sun. Under this window, the guide said, the water 
of the lake is eight hundred feet in depth ; an immense 
profundity, indeed, for an inland lake, but it is not very 
difficult to believe that the mountain at the foot of which 
Chillon stands may descend so far beneath the water. In 
other parts of the lake and not distant, more than nine hun- 
dred feet have been sounded. I looked out of the duchess's 
window, and could certainly see no appearance of a bottom 
in the light blue water. 

The last thing that the guide showed us was a trap-door, 
or opening, beneath a crazy old floor. Looking down 



THE CASTLE OF CHILLON 353 

into this aperture we saw three stone steps, which we 
should have taken to be the beginning of a flight of stairs 
that descended into a dungeon, or series of dungeons, such 
as we had already seen. But inspecting them more closely, 
we saw that the third step terminated the flight, and beyond 
was a dark vacancy. Three steps a person would grope 
down, planting his uncertain foot on a dimly seen stone ; 
the fourth step would be in the empty air. 



ROCCA MALATESTIANA 

CHARLES YRIARTE 

THE name of Malatesta illuminates every step in 
Rimini. The fortification that serves to enclose 
the town, strengthened by towers of defence and by win- 
dows that resemble our modern casements, is certainly due 
to them. The celebrated fortress known under the name 
of Rocca Malatestiana still commands the city, although it 
is now dismantled and converted into a prison, and upon 
the square, San Francesco, there rises the Temple of the 
Malatestas (Tempio Malatestiano), the purest building, 
perhaps, of the most beautiful period of Italian art, upon 
the pediment of which you read the pompous inscription : 
" To Immortal God Sigismond Malatesta, son of Pan- 
dolphe." 

In 1294, Malatesta da Verucchio built the castle upon 
the same site, and he made of it at once a sumptuous resi- 
dence and a solid fortress to which was given the name of 
Gattolo dei Malatesta. It is from there that Verucchio 
dates his will. The great Ghiberti, the sculptor of the 
" Gates of Paradise," tells us, in his Coitunentaries that in 
1400 he made some enamels for the apartments and that he 
painted some frescoes. Alas ! nothing of these remains 
for us. In 1446, comes Sigismond, son of Pandolphe, the 
great warrior and conqueror, he who has been nicknamed 



ROCCA MALATESTIANA 355 

Poliorcete, skilful in making fortifications, pupil and soon 
the rival of Roberto Valturco, the celebrated author of the 
volume of Re Militari ; he battered down the Gattolo, or, 
at least, he changed it from roof to basement at the mo- 
ment w^hen the discovery of artillery had changed all the 
conditions of the attack and defence of old castles. It vv^as 
during this transformation that the frescoes and all the 
ornamentation, of v^hich Ghiberti speaks, disappeared. 
Tvi^o superb inscriptions, one Gothic, the other of the first 
half of the Fifteenth Century, surmounted by the es- 
cutcheon of the Malatestas vv^ith the helmet crowned by 
elephants' heads and the chess-board, are sure guarantees 
of these serious modifications. In order that they should 
be proved with more certainty, Matteo de' Pasti, a 
pensioner of the lord of Rimini, struck, by order of his 
master, the superb commemorative medal representing 
the Rocca Malatestiana. Piero della Francesca, the great 
artist to whom we owe the greater number of the beautiful 
portraits of the Bentivoglios, the Montefeltros, and the 
Malatestas, brings us, in his turn, an unexceptionable 
proof, — the day when, in the temple of San Francesco of 
Rimini, the pantheon of the Malatesta family, he represents 
the lord of Rimini kneeling before Saint Sigismond, and 
gives the view of the Rocca as a background for his 
precious fresco. 

So imposing a mass should certainly have triumphed 
over time, but it has been disfigured at the pleasure of suc- 
ceeding generations. Upon the ground where we walk 
while regarding the present facade, is dug the first en- 



356 



ROCCA MALATESTIANA 



closure, a large moat a hundred feet wide and thirty-five 
feet deep, to-day filled up and forming a platform. We 
find no longer the six towers, eighty feet high, destroyed 
by Urbain VIII. (1625), who has also given his name to 
the building for more than a century, — Castello Urbano. 
Finally, in 1826, the first circuit was razed, and, the moat 
having already disappeared, they did away with the draw- 
bridge. It is nothing more than a prison, through the 
gratings of which we see the red caps of the prisoners who 
come to gaze upon a bit of blue sky. 

Another tradition insists that the Malatestas, sons of 
Verucchio, lived, during the lifetime of their father, in a 
dwelling near the old gate of San Andrea; but the house 
designated, dating at most from the last centuries, belonged 
to the Graziani, and to-day it serves as the residence for 
the family of the Ugolini Micheli. One sees how difficult 
it is to establish anything even after long inquiry ; however, 
the conclusion of the historian,Tonini, must also be our own : 
the cruel scene must have taken place in Rimini, and prob- 
ably in the Gattolo de Santa Colomba, that is to say in the 
fortress known to-day under the name of Rocca Malates- 
tiana, a residence greatly disfigured and modified, where it 
would be impossible to identify the exact spot of the mur- 
der, but which, according to a number of chronicles, was 
at the moment this murder was accomplished, a princely 
residence, "containing noble apartments," with the exterior 
appearance of a castle. 

Since Francesca was born in Ravenna, why has posterity 
unanimouslv designated her under the name of Francesca 



ROCCA MALATESTIANA 



357 



da Rimini ? Logically she should be Francesca da Ra- 
venna; but she lived in Rimini as the wife of Giovanni 
Malatesta, and it was there that she expiated her crime, or 
her weakness, by death ; it was there that her tomb was 
made, and posterity will therefore forever call her by the 
name of Francesca da Rimini. Moreover, if we sum up 
the opinions of the chroniclers and historians, it is under- 
stood by the most of them that the deed was accomplished 
in this town, and they doubt it so little that the idea never 
occurs to them to support a contrary opinion. Marco 
Battaglia, Benvenuto da Imola, Fra Giovanni da Serravalle, 
and Baldo di Branchi furnish proofs that might be consid- 
ered as negative ; but if they do not cite the name of 
Rimini, it never occurs to them to mention any other town. 
As for Jacopo Delia Lana, Gradinego and Boccaccio, all 
three name the city of the Malatestas, and later, when 
Silvio Pellico and many other dramatic poets of other 
nations will write their dramas, their poems, or their stories, 
they will not hesitate to place the scene in the same city. 
Count Odoardo Fabri will not do otherwise, and if Lord 
Byron had realized the plan he conceived and which he 
made known to Murray, his publisher, in the letters which 
are now in everybody's hands, Rimini would still be the 
scene. Is it necessary to speak of our compatriot, M. 
Auguste Thomas, the composer of Mignon^ who having 
written the score of Francesca da Rimini^ dedicated it to 
M. Tonini, the librarian of the Gambalunghiana. 

Francesca then is not Francesca da Ravenna, she is 
and she will ever remain "Francesca da Rimini." 



358 



ROCCA MALATESTIANA 



She belongs to the history of this town, or if you prefer, 
to its legend. It is in vain to turn over the leaves of the 
archives, you cannot deprive the city of the Malatestas of 
its touching picture. 

Before formulating our conclusions we will note, merely 
for the curiosity of the fact, a singular document taken from 
a volume printed in Rimini in 158 1, by Simbeni, entitled 
// Vermicello della seta^ signed under the name Giovanni 
Andrea Corsu.cci da Sascorbaro, and cited by Luigi 
Tonini : 

" A i^v^ days ago in the church of Saint Augustin, in 
Rimini, they found in a marble sepulchre Paolo Malatesta 
and Francesca, daughter of Guido da Polenta, lord of Ra- 
venna, who were put to death by Lancilotto, son of Mala- 
testa, lord of Rimini, brother of the said Paola found 
under the accomplishment of a dishonest deed, and both 
miserably killed with the blows of a poignard, as Petrarch 
describes in his Triumph of Love. Their clothes were of 
silk, and, although, they had been shut up in this sepul- 
chre for so many years, they were found in a perfect state 
of preservation." 

Upon what document Sascorbaro relies for this statement 
no one can say ; there was no inscription, no medal and 
no sign whatever that could certify to the indentity of the 
skeletons ; but the legend was evidentlv established, since 
Boccaccio and the greater number of chroniclers had said 
that the two bodies were united in the same tomb. The 
assertion of Sascorbaro, deprived of all proofs as it is, has 
come to confirm the opinion of the Florentine story-teller. 



ROCCA MALATESTIANA 



359 



Rimini persists in its legend, if legend it is ; and I also dis- 
covered a few days ago, at Gambalunghiana, the bit of silic 
tissued with gold, and placed in a frame upon which the 
erudite son of Tonini, successor to the historian of Rimini, 
does not willingly call to the attention of learned historians, 
because history desires authentic proofs ; but the common 
people view with great pleasure a contemporary relic of 
Francesca and Paolo. 



THE WARTBURG 

L. PUTTICH 

THE WARTBURG lies on the north-western slope of 
the Thuringer Forest at the top of a spur that com- 
mands an extensive view over the fruitful fields and woody 
Thuringian ridges. If the traveller has enjoyed the prospect 
during the ascent, he is engrossed by other feelings as soon 
as he has passed through the gateway into the old stronghold 
and mentally rehabilitates the entire castle as it was in days 
of yore. For the Wartburg is not only memorable as hav- 
ing been the abode for a century of the powerful landgraves 
of Thuringia who had their court here from the time this 
hold was built by Ludwig II. at the end of the Eleventh 
Century (io8o A. D. is usually considered the year of its 
completion) to the extinction of his line with Heinrich 
Raspe in the middle of the Thirteenth Century, but it has 
also acquired a classic repute in German history by three 
important occurrences : the famous Singer-war, the life of 
Saint Elizabeth, and Luther's sojourn here. 

The Singer-war, also called the war of the Wartburg, 
was brought about, as is well known, by the Minnesong- 
enthusiast landgrave, Hermann I. and his art-loving wife, 
Sophia. In 1206, they assembled six of the most celebrated 
Minnesingers, — Walter von der Vogelweide, Heinrich von 
Ofterdingen, Wolfram von Eschenbach, Heinrich (the vir- 



THE WARTBURG 



361 



tuous writer), Johann Bitterolff, and Reimer von Zwethin, 
partly native and partly foreign, — and arranged a singing- 
contest among them. Heinrich von Ofterdingen sang of 
the knightly qualities of the Archduke Leopold II. of 
Austria ; Eschenbach celebrated the fame of the King of 
France ; and Walter von der Vogelweide, the preeminence 
of the landgrave Hermann ; whilst the other singers ex- 
tolled other princes. But this gave rise to a serious strife, 
and the irritated contestants agreed (so it is said) that the 
defeated singer should die by the executioner's hand. The 
landgrave strongly forbade such a bargain over his under- 
taking, but nevertheless when Ofterdingen was declared the 
loser, the protection of the landgravine, to whom he fled, 
was necessary to save him from his adversaries. The 
landgrave adjusted the quarrel by arranging a new contest, 
to which Ofterdingen had to fetch from Hungary the 
world-famous meistersinger, Klingsor, to act as umpire. 
About a year afterwards, therefore, the latter appeared with 
Ofterdingen and the contest began again. Klingsor, how- 
ever, would not decide in favour of any one singer, but 
rather sought to reconcile the parties. In this he was suc- 
cessful, and so the " War of the Wartburg " ended in feast- 
ing and revels which the landgrave provided. 

Although its original features have been destroyed, the 
Minnesinger Hall in which the contest took place still 
stands, and might easily be restored ; but fragments of the 
poems of the Wartburg war are preserved in the Maneseichen, 
Docenschen^ and other collections. It has been held, how- 
ever, and not without good grounds, that the poems still 



362 



THE WARTBURG 



extant of that contest were first collected a century after it 
was held. It seems certain, nevertheless, that the kernel 
of the matter is largely contained in these collections. 

Saint Elizabeth, the daughter of King Andrew II. of 
Hungary, became the wife of the landgrave Ludwig VI., the 
Pious, in 1221 ; and resided at the Wartburg with him. 
She was a model of simplicity, piety and gentleness; and 
during a famine and accompanying pestilence that ravaged 
Thuringia, she displayed these great virtues to the highest 
degree, proving herself a true mother of her country by her 
self-sacrifice in nursing the sick and dying. 

Luther had left the Diet at Worms ; he had been out- 
lawed, and the safe-conduct granted to him by the Emperor 
Charles V. was soon about to lapse, for it was limited to 
twenty-one days. His friends and protectors therefore 
feared for his life, and, in order to hide him, Luther was 
snatched up by masked servants while passing through the 
Thuringer Forest, and brought to the Wartburg. It is 
scarcely to be doubted that this happened by the contri- 
vance of the Kurfurst Friedrich, although at first he may 
have avoided all knowledge of Luther's retreat, in order to 
be able to meet all official inquiries. Luther arrived at the 
Wartburg in May, 1521, under the name of a knight Gorg. 
Here, for nearly a year, he lived in a little chamber, in a 
wing to the right of the chief tower, very simply adorned 
and furnished only with the barest necessaries. It still ex- 
ists in its original condition, and it is with awe that the vis- 
itor enters the little abode wherein the great man partly ac- 
complished his undying work, — the translation of the Bible. 



THE WARTBURG 363 

The castle chapel in the landgrave's quarters still contains 
the pulpit from which Luther often preached to the in- 
mates. 

When we approach the castle from the east, where the 
.carriage road leading from the town of Eisenach first winds 
through a wooded valley up to the tree-clad ridge, the 
Wartburg sits enthroned high above on the top of the 
mountain. From this point we see the landgrave-abode, 
and to its immediate right the residence built in 1791, and 
fortified walls stretching to the gate-house, or knight-house 
(Ritterhaus). 

The ridge on which the castle extends from north to 
south is long and narrow and of very irregular form. It 
was formerly entirely covered with buildings that sur- 
rounded the inner courtyard. The single main entrance 
originally consisted of three or four gateways constructed 
one behind another with intermediate spaces, on the north- 
east. The outermost of these, supplied with a high tower, 
stood close to the narrow and steep approach which is cut 
in the rock and leads to the top of the mount. This outer- 
most tower, it is conjectured, overhung this steep path, so 
that in case of attack the foe might be more easily repelled. 
The innermost gateway, which led into the stronghold 
itself, is the only one now standing. Formerly it was fur- 
nished with a drawbridge which recently has been changed 
to a strong bridge of stone. Above the gateway, rises the 
so-called Ritterhaus (knight-house) which retains evidences 
of having been much higher formerly than it now is. It 
probably formed the tower-gate which, in 1558, was partly 



3^4 



THE WARTBURG 



demolished and brought into closer relations with the other 
buildings. The Ritterhaus served as the dwelling of the 
knights whom the landgrave assembled about him for the 
defence of the castle : it is now the dwelling of the Castellan. 
The style of those buildings still standing shows that they 
belong to the Fifteenth Century, and only the lower part 
of the walls is of the date at which the castle was founded, 
at the end of the Eleventh or some time during the 
Twelfth Century. The relief carved on the wall over the 
gateway also belongs to the same date. Its meaning can- 
not be solved. Popularly, it is called the Jonah ; but it 
represents a knight about to be devoured by a dragon. 
The coat-of-arms hanging at the knight's neck appears to 
bear the imperial eagle. Another perhaps equally ancient 
relief, which is found on the west wall not far from the 
square tower, is also to be noted. It represents a man sit- 
ting on a lion and tearing its jaws apart : it refers to the 
fact that the landgrave Ludwig the Good once single- 
handed bound a lion that his father-in-law had sent 
to him, and that had escaped from its cage in the court- 
yard. 

Through the door under the Ritterhaus^ we enter the 
courtyard of the Wartburg, and see to the west one of the 
continuations of the Ritterhaus. Adjoining this to the 
south, are other buildings ; among others, that containing 
Luther's chamber. On the left, to the east, runs a long 
high wall from the Ritterhaus to the chief building standing 
on that side. This wall is covered with a defence-way of 
very simple form resembling those still occasionally found 



THE WARTBURG 365 

in old city walls. The first chief building already men- 
tioned on that side was formerly called the Musshaus (house 
of ease and leisure). Between it and the above-mentioned 
wall at the end of the courtyard, was originally a high wall 
with a wide doorway, so that the whole rear part of the 
castle, the residence of the ruling family, was separated 
from the front part where the knights and attendants dwelt. 
According to ancient report, the Musshaus was only a tall, 
plain block, though the interior was not devoid of luxury, 
and here the landgrave's family dwelt. 

Adjoining the south side of the Musshaus was the Land- 
gravenhaus (landgrave-house), also called the great or high 
house, which was devoted to ceremonials in the days of the 
landgraves. It is a stately structure that originated perhaps 
in the time of Ludwig III. in the middle of the Twelfth 
Century. In Germany it stands alone as a princely private 
building of such dimensions that still preserves its original 
form in the Byzantine or Roman style of architecture. In 
these respects, there is no ancestral secular building that 
can compare with it abroad also. On the west, it is con- 
nected with the Minnesinger Hall which formerly formed 
the chief entrance to the above hall through broad win- 
dows, divided up into round arches by little columns, for the 
other three sides had no entrance. The columns rest upon 
a low sill, so that people can look between them into the 
hall ; so that it is to be presumed that the passage thus 
formed was intended for spectators. The little columns 
are ornamented with delicate capitals and volutes. They 
have Attic bases. In the time of Friedrich I. this hall was 



366 



THE WARTBURG 



adorned with mural paintings of battles and other memora- 
ble occurrences of the life of the period. Traces of these 
paintings were still visible at the beginning of the present 
century. 



CHATEAU D'AMBOISE 

JULES LOISELEUR 

THE Castle of Amboise is placed at the entrance of 
Touraine like the jealous sentinel guarding the en- 
trance to the Garden of the Hesperides. It is not a palace 
like the castle of Blois, nor a villa of a royal mistress like 
Chenonceaux, nor a sort of immense convent full of mys- 
terious cells like Chambord : it is a military place, a verita- 
ble fortress of the Middle Ages upon which is grafted a 
castle of the Fifteenth Century. 

This formidable military position has been at all times 
the key of this beautiful province. When Caesar marched 
against the Armoricans, there lodged here a Roman garri- 
son. From the height of these impregnable rocks, the 
counts of Anjou, and later the Plantagenets, their descend- 
ants, these worthy sons of the Black Falcon restrained 
within their talons the slightest movements of Touraine, 
while they kept a jealous watch over the counts of Blois 
and Champagne, who possessed but a few leagues away the 
sombre fortress of Chaumont. Amboise and Chaumont 
were the two advanced sentinels of these two impregnable 
neighbours. These solid walls served under Charles VII. 
as the rampart for the monarchy menaced by the English 
invasion ; they protected the Catholic royalty of Francis II. 



368 ChAtEAU D'AMBOISE 

against the stroke of Renaudie ; they have enclosed turn 
by turn the illustrious victims of royal ingratitude like the 
Marshall de Gie, powerful rebels like the princes of Ven- 
dome, accomplices of Chalais, state prisoners like Fouquet 
and Lauzun, and the vanquished like Abd-el-Kader. When 
you interrogate these enormous towers, these menacing bat- 
tlements, and these inaccessible walls, you draw from them 
no memories of joy, peace, or love; nothing but bloody 
deeds spring from them; nothing but memories of mourn- 
ing are evoked. 

Buildings have, even more than mankind, their own 
physiognomy upon which their history is reflected. His- 
tory and physiognomy are here in perfect union. No ro- 
mancer, even were he possessed with Melusine's enchanted 
ring, would dare to place an intrigue of love behind these 
walls impressed with deep wounds of gun-shots, or, if he 
did so, it would doubtless be on account of that law of 
contrasts, so loved of Nature, that places the nests of the 
warbler in the mouths of deserted cannon. 

Stop upon this old bridge constructed by Hugues d'Am- 
boise, one of the heroes of Tasso. From here you will 
take in the entire imposing and truly Roman view of the 
powerful citadel, from the Gate of the Lions, which opens 
upon the moat dug by Cassar, as far as the two towers, now 
decapitated, of the ancient donjon above the trunks of 
which rises the slender spire of the Chapel of St. Hubert. 
Remove by imagination the narrow and common dwellings 
that encroach upon the old castle. Throw into the Loire 
the modern levee and quay that obstruct it here, and picture 



CHATEAU D'AMBOISE 369 

the noble river freely beating the base of the fortress. The 
great tower erected by Charles VIII. casts its shadow upon 
the Loire, on which opens a door that forms on this side 
the only entrance to the castle. Further back, and as if 
lost in the shadow of the immense tower, is the principal 
building of this habitation, the base of which dates from 
the counts of Amboise and whose five windows pierced at 
a considerable height on the side overlooking the Loire, 
although they are on the ground floor on the side of the 
court, seem like vigilant eyes upon the country. Then 
by mental effort throw down the terrace in front of these 
windows, the work of Louis-Philippe, who caused this 
facade to lose some of its crabbed countenance ; close up 
the five rounded bay windows, also the work of the same 
King, which light the kitchens ; in a word, leave noth- 
ing that juts out upon that straight and perpendicular facade 
except the balcony that overhangs the five casements of 
which we shall speak, and upon which open the large win- 
dows of the royal apartment. You will then have an ap- 
proximate idea of what Amboise was in the time of Henri 
III., when Du Cerceau conceived the plan in 157 

This balcony from which you look upon the Loire, is the 
work of Louis XII. : it is an historical monument. Noth- 
ing could be less complicated, nothing could be more for- 
midable in its simplicity. It was upon this balcony that the 
chief ringleaders of the conspiracy against Amboise were 
hanged. The bodies, attached to these solid bars, hung in 
the open air; the stroke of a poignard cut the rope and 
they fell into the Loire : a means of burial as rapid as had 



370 chAteau d'amboise 

been the judgment and the execution. Such is the Castle 
of Amboise seen from the Loire. 

The tunnel, the stairway, and even the vault are modern 
works, which in moulding this old castle to our ideas of 
comfort deprive it of its feudal character. It is by the 
southern tower that we must ascend If we wish to be 
deeply impressed by this character. In the time of Charles 
VIII., this tower was the only entrance for knights and lit- 
ters, for the one on the north corresponding to it bathes its 
foot in the Loire, as we have said. It was through the 
southern tower that Charles V. entered when he crossed 
France in 1539. This solid and immovable work is cer- 
tainly the largest construction of the kind in France. The 
thick masonry that forms the nucleus of it is in itself a 
respectable size. The stairway turns four times from the 
base to the summit around this hollowed-out centre, and 
reaches a height of more than 600 feet. 

This stairway, or rather these steps in helix, rest upon 
an ogival vault. Carvings sustain the points from which 
the large arches spring and terminate the nerves of the lit- 
tle arches. These carvings present all kinds of little fig- 
ures, some of which are fantastic, others grotesque, and 
others again indecent, for the artists of the late Gothic 
period were willing enough to execute the latter to please 
their patrons who enjoyed these grotesques and the laughter 
they caused far more than fine arabesques. Monks abound 
in these sculptures. This one holds his stomach in both 
hands, like a gastronome punished by his exploits ; this one, 
suffering from a terrible toothache, makes a grimace like 



CHATEAU D'AMBOISE 



371 



one possessed. Most of these figures have been mutilated 
with blows of the bayonet by the prisoners who for about 
fifteen years were shut up in this tower in 18 15. Louis- 
Philippe began its restoration. 

About one-third of the way up, a little stone step, pierced 
in the outer wall, leads to a kind of hollowed-out rostrum, 
where, if we may believe tradition, Louis XIL harangued 
the multitude, when an attack on the municipal franchise 
aroused the inhabitants of the town of Amboise, or Petit- 
Fort. Happy time ! when revolutionary uprisings could 
be calmed by orations ! 

At the top of this tower you see the gigantic horns of a 
stag that formerly ornamented the base of the Chapel of 
Saint Hubert. This is more than ten feet high, and was 
made at the order of Charles VHL with such art and truth- 
fulness of imitation that allows the guide to show it to un- 
sophisticated tourists for the natural horns of a full-grown 
and gigantic stag killed in some forest in the Brobdinagian 
country. 

The donjon, the first dwelling of the lords of Amboise, 
occupied the west, the space comprised between the two 
little headless towers which still exist. 

On the side of the Loire, opposite the building of the 
Sept-Vertues, there rise other buildings belonging to Am- 
boise, but they were restored by Charles VUL and com- 
pletely changed by Louis XH. and Francis L There are 
to be found the apartment of the King and Queen, due to 
the last prince, and, close beside it, that curious chamber 
which was supported by four massive pillars of masonry, 



372 chAteau D'AMBOISE 

and to which no entrance was possible except by a single 
opening pierced through the floor. This was the work of 
Catharine de'Medici, after one of her astrologers had fore- 
warned her of the fall of a great edifice. She thought that, 
by means of these material precautions, she could escape the 
menace of Fortune which allowed her to see the fall of 
quite a different edifice to Amboise : that of the Valois 
dynasty, so laboriously restored by her efforts. 

The chapel is the perfect antithesis of the castle. 

Just as the one is sombre, severe, dominating and sinis- 
trously beautiful, on account of its mass and size, the other 
is bright, efflorescent, and smiling, delicately embroidered 
and pierced like lace. 

This charming chapel, proudly encamped upon a rocky 
peak, is one of the best products of the third ogival style of 
that period of Flamboyant Gothic that immediately pre- 
ceded the Renaissance. But it is not, as has been believed 
until now, the work of Italian artists brought from Naples 
by Charles VIII. That is an error in which even M. Jules 
Quicherat shared, but which was obliterated at the recent 
discovery of an itemized account of all the expenses of 
furnishing and decorating the Chapel of Amboise and for 
the contiguous apartments in the towers. This precious 
document states that the expenses commenced in 1490 and 
continued until 1494. Now the year 1494, in which 
Charles VIII. finished ornamenting and furnishing the 
Chapel of Amboise, is precisely the one in which he 
started on his expedition to Italy. The honour of this 
charming conception then reverts wholly to native artists. 



chAteau d'amboise 373 

The facade is entirely occupied by a large ogival en- 
trance, the top of which presents one of those great, circu- 
lar rose-windows, — the characteristic sign of the Flamboy- 
ant Gothic. An authority no less exact for the construc- 
tion of this facade is shown in the form of the two doors 
cut in the entrance, these showing that surbased arch so 
common in the English buildings of the reigns of Henry 
VII. and Henry VIII., and which derives from them the 
name of the Tudor arch. These two doors, separated by 
a pilaster and niche, support a stone bas-relief, the principal 
motive of which is the conversion of Saint Hubert. 

A gigantic stag stands in the centre of the composition. 
Between his horns there rises a flamboyant cross. The 
ardent huntsman stops in terror at this sight, he bends one 
knee, and with one hand restrains his horse, while with the 
other he salutes the miraculous sign destined to convert him 
to Christianity : instead of the Aquitaine Nimrod, the per- 
secutor of the forests of Ardennes, he is only an apostle, 
the successor of Saint Lambert. A host of wild animals 
form the accessories of this picture, as if the entire popula- 
tion of the forests is taking part in the conversion of the 
patron of huntsmen. Saint Anthony, in a corner to the left, 
contemplates Saint Christopher bearing his divine burden. 

This bas-relief, somewhat clumsy in workmanship, does 
not give the slightest idea of the charming delicacy of the 
interior. The banal and rather strained comparison of lace 
woven by the fays, is more than a truthful one here. Im- 
agine two rows of point d' Jlen^on^ half a metre high, fes- 
tooned the entire length of the walls to form a series of 



374 chAteau d'amboise 

canopies and niches in corbelling, diversified by graceful 
little columns with prismatic arches. Carvings and figures, 
inexhaustible in variety, terminate the pendentives of these 
niches. Not one of these motives is repeated a second 
time : vine leaves, acanthus leaves, holly leaves, oak leaves, 
cabbage leaves, and thistle leaves, — the entire architectural 
flora of the Fifteenth Century is here under our eyes min- 
gled with a host of real and fantastic animals. There are 
also some human figures : a little monk in a corner by the 
side of the altar blows the trumpet in a whimsical manner, 
exactly like the one that serves for a reading-desk in the 
Temptation by Callot. 

Upon this profusion of lace, of foliage, of crockets, and 
stags' horns, upon this mass of curled leaves, pinked leaves, 
and leaves turned and twisted in a hundred fashions, there 
falls a glowing light, sifted through the windows, where 
vermilion, orpiment and ultra-marine are the dominating 
colours. These windows, upon which saints are repre- 
sented in life-size, were made in Sevres, some of them after 
the designs of the Princess Marie d'Orleans. Perhaps 
there is a slight false note in the selection of these strong 
colours. Light tones and yellowish and whitish tints were 
generally preferred at the end of the Fifteenth Century. 
It was this gradual abandoning of colour that fifty years 
later engendered the grisailles. 

Before it was restored by Louis-Philippe, this church had 
been used for twenty years as the hall for the castle's po- 
lice. One may judge by that alone of the seriousness of 
the mutilations. 



F 



BLARNEY CASTLE 

MR. AND MRS. S. C. HALL 

EW places in Ireland are more familiar to English ears 
than Blarney ; the notoriety is attributable, first, to 
the marvellous qualities of its famous " stone," and next, 
to the extensive popularity of the song,— 

*' The groves of Blarney, they are so charming." 

When or how the stone obtained its singular reputation, 
it is difficult to determine ; the exact position among the 
ruins of the castle is also a matter of doubt ; the peasant- 
guides humour the visitor according to his capacity for 
climbing, and direct, either to the summit or the base, the 
attention of him who desires to " greet it with a holy kiss." 
He who has been dipped in the Shannon is presumed to 
have obtained, in abundance, the gift of that " civil cour- 
age " which makes an Irishman at ease and unconstrained 
in all places and under all circumstances ; and he who has 
kissed the Blarney stone is assumed to be endowed with a 
fluent and persuasive tongue, although it may be associated 
with insincerity ; the term " Blarney " being generally used 
to characterize words that are meant neither to be " honest 
nor true." It is conjectured that the comparatively mod- 
ern application of the term " Blarney " first had existence 
when the possessor. Lord Clancarty, was a prisoner to Sir 
George Carew, by whom he was subjected to several ex- 
aminations touching his loyalty, which he was required to 



376 



BLARNEY CASTLE 



prove by surrendering his strong castle to the soldiers of 
the Oueen ; this bet he always endeavoured to evade by 
some plausible excuse, but as invariably professing his will- 
ingness to do so. The particulars are fully detailed in the 
" Pacata Hibernia." 

It is certain that to no particular stone of the ancient 
structure is the marvellous quality exclusively attributed ; 
but in order to make it as difficult as possible to attain the 
enviable gift, it had long been the custom to point out a 
stone, a few feet below the battlements, which the very 
daring only would run the hazard of touching with their 
lips. The attempt to do so was, indeed, so dangerous, that 
a few years ago Mr. Jeffreys had it removed from the wall 
and placed on the highest point of the building, where the 
visitor may now greet it with little risk. It is about two 
feet square, and contains the date 1703, with a portion of 
the arms of the Jeffreys family, but the date, at once, nega- 
tives its claim to be considered the true marvel of Blarney.^ 
A few days before our visit a madman made his way to the 
top of the castle, and after dancing around it for some 
hours, his escape from death being almost miraculous, he 
flung this stone from the tower; it was broken in the fall, 
and now as the guide stated to us, the "three halves " must 
receive three distinct kisses to be in any degree effective. 

1 The Rev. Matthew Horgan, the parish priest of Blarney, informs us 
that "the curious traveller will seek in vain for the rea/ stone, unless he 
allows himself to be lowered from the northern angle of the lofty castle, 
when he will discover it about twenty feet from the top with this inscrip- 
tion : — 

Cormac MacCarthy Fortis, 

Me Fieri Fecit. A. d., 1446." 



BLARNEY CASTLE 



377 



The age of the song has been satisfactorily ascertained ; 
it was written in the year 1798 or 1799, by Richard Alfred 
Millikin, an attorney of Cork. The author little antici- 
pated the celebrity his lines were destined to acquire ; they 
were composed to ridicule the nonsense verses of the vil- 
lage poets, who, with a limited knowledge of the English 
language, and a smattering of classical names, were in the 
habit of indulging their still more ignorant auditors, by 
stringing together sounds that had no sense, but conveyed a 
notion of the prodigious learning of the singer. 

Millikin's song has been injurious to Ireland ; it has 
raised many a laugh at Ireland's expense, and contributed 
largely to aid the artist and the actor, of gone-by times, in 
exhibiting the Irishman as little better than a buffoon — ■ 
very amusing, no doubt, but exciting any feeling rather 
than that of respect.- 

It is impossible to contemplate the romantic ruins of 
Blarney Castle without a feeling more akin to melancholy 
than to pleasure ; they bear, so perfectly, the aspect of 
strength utterly subdued, and remind one so forcibly that 
the " glory " of Ireland belongs to days departed. The 
castle stands — 

"as stands a lofty mind. 
Worn, but unstooping to the baser crowd. 
All tenantless, save to the crannying wind." 

The stronghold of Blarney was erected about the middle 
of the Fifteenth Century by Cormac MacCarthy, surnamed 
" Laider," or the Strong; whose ancestors had been chief- 
tains in Munster from a period long antecedent to the Eng- 



378 



BLARNEY CASTLE 



lish invasion, and whose descendants, as Lords of Muskerry 
and Clancarty, retained no inconsiderable portion of their 
power and estates until the year 1689, when their immense 
possessions were confiscated, and the last earl became an 
exile, like the monarch whose cause he had supported. The 
castle, village, mills, fairs, and customs of Blarney, with the 
land and park thereunto belonging, containing 1400 acres, 
were "set up by cant" in the year 1702, purchased by 
Sir Richard Pyne, Lord Chief Justice, for ;{^3,ooo, and by 
him disposed of, the following year, to General Sir James 
Jeffreys, in whose family the property continues. Al- 
though the walls of this castle are still strong, many of the 
outworks have long since been levelled with the earth ; the 
plough has passed over their foundations, and " the stones 
of which they were built have been used in repairing the 
turnpike-roads." 

The small village of Blarney is about four miles north- 
west of Cork ; a few years ago it was remarkably clean, 
neat, and thriving ; its prosperity having resulted from the 
establishment of several linen and cotton factories, the 
whole of which have been swept away, and the hamlet is 
now, like the castle, an assemblage of ruins. In the 
vicinity, however, there is yet a woollen-manufactory and a 
paper-mill, both in full work. The scenery in the neigh- 
bourhood is agreeable, but the grounds that immediately sur- 
round the castle are of exceeding beauty. Nature has done 
much more for them than art ; although there is evidence 
that the hand of taste had busied itself in the duty of im- 
provement. " The sweet Rock-close " is a small dell, in 



BLARNEY CASTLE 



379 



which evergreens grow luxuriantly, completely shaded with 
magnificent trees. At its termination, are the " Witches' 
Stairs " ; a series of rugged stone steps which lead down 
through a passage in the rock to a delicious spot of green- 
sward forming the bank of a clear rivulet — and where some 
singular masses appear to have been " the work of Druid 
hands of old." 



T 



CHATEAU DE LOCHES 

J. J. BOURRASSEE 

HE traveller who visits Loches for the first time is 
greatly struck by the picturesque position of the 
town on an elevation — gently sloping down to the meadows 
watered by the Indre. Above the houses rise the turrets 
of the castle, v/hich in turn are dominated by the pyramids 
of the old collegiate church of Our Lady, above which 
again appears the ancient medieeval fortress in its somewhat 
austere majesty. The combination forms an enchanting 
view seen under the first beams of the rising sun from the 
edge of the forest on the Montresor road. 

About the beginning of the Sixth Century, St. Ours 
came to Touraine to settle at Loches. There several 
monks placed themselves under his discipline. The mon- 
astery of St. Ours made a town of Loches. As has often 
been remarked, the people of the country like to group 
around these religious houses where they find at the same 
time a church with its spiritual aid, a refuge always open 
against the persecution of the mighty, a school, a hospital, 
and a model farm with its agricultural and industrial in- 
struction. In a few years the collection became sufficiently 
important for the establishment of a castrum. This strong 
castle, which was already in existence at the time of 
Gregory of Tours, was placed in a position that was very 



chAteau de loches 381 

easy to defend : it was protected on one side by that elbow 
of the mountain to which St. Ours had retired and by the 
escarpment towards the Indre, a flank that was rendered al- 
most inaccessible by the river and the valley marshes ; on an- 
other, by the natural depression of the vale of Mazerolles ; 
and, on the third, by a deep and wide cutting in the chalky 
tufa. The castle which crowned the hill and commanded 
the surrounding country was so strong for that age that all 
conquerors contended for its possession. 

After the Romans, we find the Visigoths here, and then 
the Merovingian princes, the feudal lords, the counts of 
Anjou and Touraine who became kings of England and 
the kings of France after Philip Augustus. At the foot of 
the ancient castle of Loches, a hundred fights of chivalry 
were settled. Under the feudal rule, the surrounding fields 
were thronged with bands of men marching under various 
banners. 

The counts of Anjou, whose ambition was the scourge 
of our province, had become masters of Loches, thanks to 
skilfully calculated matrimonial alliances. The citadel of 
Loches became the boulevard of their warlike enterprises 
in the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries. 

The Eleventh Century fortress, whose square donjon 
commands the surrounding country, is not so well preserved 
as the collegiate church. Nevertheless, the learned who 
study our national antiquities consider it one of the most 
precious remains of the military architecture of that remote 
age. Picture to yourself an imposing mass, formed of two 
bodies of buildings shoulder to shoulder rising to a height 



o82 chAteau de loches 

of forty metres. The principal building is 25 m. 33 cm. 
long while the other attains only half this length. The 
interior disposition of the small tower is visible at the first 
glance on account of the disappearance of the floors that 
formerly divided it into four stories. In the lower portion 
is a low hall from which rose a stairway of from thirty-five 
to forty steps, with two landings, by which to reach the 
principal rooms. At the top of this stairway is the door 
that gave access to every part of the donjon. On the first 
story, it opens into a hall of the great tower, the dimen- 
sions of which are so vast that it could contain five hun- 
dred men; then, at the same level, into the corresponding 
hall of the little tower; and lastly by a secret passage, 
twenty-four metres in length, hidden in the thickness of the 
wall, one could descend to the vaulted hall that occupied 
the base of the donjon, and that served as an arsenal, a 
treasury and a prison. Three flights of steps, at present 
interrupted and set in the interior of the walls, led to the 
upper stories. The donjon probably terminated in an 
exterior wooden gallery resting on a movable scaffolding 
intended for repulsing assaults ; the numerous holes to be 
seen at the top of the wall authorize this supposition. 

Thus established, the Roman donjon of Loches is one 
of the most remarkable monuments of its kind. The 
beauty of its size, the masterly skill of its construction, the 
imposing amplitude of its mass, half disguised by round 
buttresses that rise to the summit, the artifice of its military 
dispositions, the ingenious multiplicity of its defences, the 
boldness of its outline, and the proud aspect of the whole. 



chAteau de loches 383 

all recommend it to the attention of the antiquary and the 
artist. To-day it is of no military importance ; but for the 
town of Loches it will ever constitute a picturesque ele- 
ment of the first order. 

In 1 194, Richard Coeur-de-Lion, being delivered from the 
prison in which he was unjustly kept by the Emperor of Ger- 
many, made haste to Touraine, his possession of which was 
being disputed by Philip Augustus. Nothing could moder- 
ate his boiling heat. After having captured and ransomed 
Chateauneuf de Tours, the King of England hastened to 
Loches. The castle was defended by twenty knights and 
eighty archers under the command of Guy de Laval. The 
governor at first defended himself resolutely enough ; but 
Richard attacked the place with such fury, and himself 
directed the assault with such energy, that it was necessary 
to yield. Guy de Laval was made prisoner with some of 
his most intrepid knights. But the struggle was far from 
being ended : it only slumbered for a few years. Richard, 
wounded at the siege of Chaluz, in Limousin, died at Chi- 
non at the age of forty-two, April 6, 1199. He was 
buried at Fontevrault, leaving behind a troubled and more 
especially a greatly disputed heritage. Queen Berengaria, 
his wife, received Loches and Montbazon with their 
domains and dependencies as her dowry. 

In 1204, we see Philip Augustus reappear in Touraine. 
In consequence of the confiscation pronounced against 
John Lackland, the King of France himself came to take 
possession of the principal places and towns in the prov- 
ince. Tours opened her gates at the first summons. 



384 CHATEAU DE LOCKES 

Loches did not show herself so obliging. The castle was 
defended by Girard d'Athee and other lords devoted to the 
interests of England. 

It was necessary to lay a regular siege. After a year of 
struggle and toil, the place was forced to capitulate on ac- 
count of the failure of provisions and ammunition. Philip 
Augustus gave it in recompense to Dreux de Mello, con- 
stable of France, a brave knight, celebrated for his exploits 
in France and Palestine, whither he had accompanied the 
King. Afterwards this gift was bought back by St. Louis, 
by an act dated December, 1249, ^^ ^^^ banks of the Nile 
in Egypt. 

On returning to France, St. Louis spent several days at 
Loches. In 1301 and 1307, Philippe le Bel rested eight 
days at the castle of Loches on his way to talk to Pope 
Clement V. about the affair of the Templars. Half a 
century later, John II. arrived at Loches at the head of the 
flower of French chivalry on his way to Poictiers to 
give battle to the Black Prince. Fortune appeared to be 
smiling upon him and victory seemed to be assured ; but 
instead of accepting the advantageous propositions made by 
his adversary, he wanted to crush the army of the foe. He 
then fell victim to one of those disasters that leave a long 
and sad echo in history. The evils that overwhelmed 
France were horrible. Anarchy was complete, and reigned 
in every rank of the hierarchy. The English re-took 
Loches, and for more than half-a-century the foreigner 
trampled on and desolated our provinces. 

At length came Charles VII. When he first visited 



chAteau DE LOCHES 385 

Loches, he was still only the King of Bourges. A poor 
suite followed him ; but he was accompanied by Marie 
d'Anjou, a princess of rare prudence and a courage proof 
against everything. This virtuous queen was France's 
good genius. In spite of the miseries of the time, she 
never despaired of her country. Her confidence was not 
deceived : Joan of Arc soon accomplished her glorious mis- 
sion : France was saved. 

In 1436, Charles VII. reappeared at Loches; but this 
time the queen was not alone. In her company was a 
young girl whose timidity seemed to recommend her, but 
whose position was no mystery to anybody : she was Agnes 
Sorel, born in the village of Fromenteau in Touraine. 
Charles VII. gave her the castle of Beaute in Champagne, 
it is said, so that she might be Dame de Beaute by title as 
well as in reality. Agnes possessed a small house at 
Beaulieu where she sometimes stayed to hide herself from 
the eyes of the courtiers. So the King had the tower built 
at the Castle of Loches that still bears the name of Agnes 
Sorel. This tower stands in a delightful spot : it com- 
mands the smiling vale of the Indre, and from it the view 
embraces a charming panorama. The eye is arrested by a 
curtain of verdure formed by the ancient oaks of the forest 
and then wanders with pleasure over the freshest meadows 
imaginable. Agnes Sorel is in the choir of the church at 
Loches. Her white marble tomb, with her statue also of 
white marble, the feet resting on two little lambs and hands 
clasped, is now to be seen in the castle tower that bears her 
name. 



386 chAteau de loches 

The strong position of the castle of Loches gained for it 
at an early date the sad honour of becoming a state prison. 
Behind its beautiful and solid walls, great lords came to ex- 
piate their ambitious intrigues, or the simple misfortune of 
having displeased those more powerful than themselves. 
Geoffroy de Saint-Aignan was shut up here and strangled 
in the Eleventh Century ; Thibault, Count of Tours, suf- 
fered the severest treatment here after his defeat at Nouy ; 
and John, Duke of Alen^on, was cast into a deep cell here 
by order of Charles VII. for having aided an ungrateful 
son in his attempts at rebellion, a son who was always 
ready to foment trouble in the realm. But it was Louis 

XI. who made the most frequent use of the Loches cells. 
Charles VIII. often inhabited the castle during his early 

youth. Charlotte of Savoy, his mother, was treated in it 
almost like a prisoner by the suspicious Louis XL, who 
never exhibited a very lively friendship for his wife. On 
his accession, Charles did not forget Loches ; he began the 
great tower that was completed by his successor, and he 
took his graceful wife, Anne of Brittany, thither. Louis 

XII. constructed the building that connects the round with 
the square tower. In this is found the low room in which 
Louis le More was confined in 1505. The Duke of 
Milan spent several years in his prison at Loches, in a truly 
sinister cell. 

The soldier became an artist, and on the sombre walls of 
his cell he laid a strange and original composition, full of 
grandeur and character. Over the chimney-piece he placed 
his portrait, more than life size, with casque on head as on 



chAteau de loches 387 

the day of battle, and vizor raised. The energetic features 
of this profile, the aquiline nose, prominent chin and upper 
lip curled in a disdainful smile, depict for us the entire man. 
Between the lines pens are ranged, punning allusions to the 
pains he suffered. The whole cell is decorated in three 
colours, yellow ochre, red brown and almost blue black, 
combined with the white of the walls. It was with this 
work that Sforza occupied the interminable hours of his 
solitude. Travellers view these paintings with curiosity 
as if to probe the secret thoughts that filled the bitter heart 
of the dethroned prince. One cannot help shuddering at 
the thought that the unfortunate Duke of Milan lived here 
for long years, shut up in this in pace by the good Louis 
XII. However, Ludovic did not remain forever in this 
cell. Towards the last, the King permitted him to occupy 
the upper apartments of the palace under surveillance of 
some Scottish soldiers. 

Another noted prisoner deserves mention. John, lord 
of Saint Vallier, father of Diana of Poictiers, allowed him- 
self to be drawn into the conspiracy of the Duke of Bour- 
bon. The plot was revealed by Louis de Breze, who had 
no idea that he was implicating his father-in-law. Saint 
Vallier was arrested and imprisoned in the Castle of Loches. 
From his prison, September 19, 1523, he wrote touching 
letters to his children begging them to appeal to the King 
in his favour. But Francis I. showed himself hard and im- 
penetrable. The guilty man was condemned and led to the 
Place de Greve, more dead than alive, to be decapitated. 
At the moment when the sentence was about to be carried 



388 chAteau de loches 

out, an archer came from the King, bringing, not a pardon, 
but a commutation. The unfortunate man, whose hair had 
turned white in a night, was so afFected by the preparation 
for his death that he almost lost his reason. Ever after- 
wards he was afflicted with a nervous trembling, accom- 
panied by fever, which became known as the fever of St. 
Vallier. 

By a singular irony of fate, splendid fetes were held in 
this same castle, whither so many wretches came to groan. 
Thirty years had not elapsed since the Duke of Milan had 
breathed his last sigh, when the conqueror of Pavia was 
received at Loches by him who there had lost " all but 
honour." Francis I., like a generous prince, on this occa- 
sion displayed extreme magnificence : he came to meet his 
rival, December 12, 1539, accompanied by his queen, 
Eleanor, and followed by his whole court. The entertain- 
ments were numerous and splendid, and only ended when 
the Emperor had arrived on the frontier of the Low Coun- 
tries. 

The splendour o^ fetes shone anew at Loches in 1559, 
when Henri IL and Catherine de'Medici passed through 
ten years afterwards; Henri IH., while still the Dauphin, 
stayed there for several days, at the moment when he was 
going to take his place at the head of the army concen- 
trated in the environs, on the eve of the victory of Mon- 
contour. Here also were seen Charles IX., Henri IV. and 
Marie de'Medici. The latter was a fugitive, taking ref- 
uge here for a few moments after leaving the Castle of 
Blois, whence she had succeeded in escaping. From that 



chAteau DE LOCHES 389 

epoch, silence has invaded the vast halls and towers, the 
terraces and gardens. Nothing has interrupted it except the 
savage cries of the Revolution. To-day the palace of the 
Kings, discrowned and almost deserted, keeps only the 
memory of magnificence gone forever. 



THE PALACE OF BLENHEIM 

NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 

THE park gate of Blenheim stands close to the end of 
the village street of Woodstock. Immediately on 
passing through its portals, we saw the stately palace in the 
distance, but made a wide circuit of the park before approach- 
ing it. This noble park contains three thousand acres of 
land, and is fourteen miles in circumference. Having 
been, in part, a royal domain before it was granted to the 
Marlborough family, it contains many trees of unsurpassed 
antiquity, and has doubtless been the haunt of game and 
deer for centuries. We saw pheasants in abundance, feed- 
ing in the open lawns and glades ; and the stags tossed 
their antlers and bounded away, not affrighted, but only 
shy and gamesome, as we drove by. It is a magnificent 
pleasure-ground, not too tamely kept, nor rigidly subjected 
within rule, but vast enough to have lapsed back into nature 
again, after all the pains that the landscape-gardeners of 
Queen Anne's time bestowed on it, when the domain of 
Blenheim was scientifically laid out. The great, knotted 
slanting trunks of the old oaks do not now look as if man 
had much intermeddled with their growth and postures. 
The trees of later date, that were set out in the Great 
Duke's time, are arranged on the plan of the order of bat- 
tle in which the illustrious commander ranked his troops at 



THE PALACE OF BLENHEIM 



391 



Blenheim ; but the ground covered is so extensive, and the 
trees now so luxuriant, that the spectator is not disagreeably- 
conscious of their standing in military array, as if Orpheus 
had summoned them together by beat of drum. The 
effect must have been very formal a hundred and fifty years 
ago, but has ceased to be so, — although the trees, I presume, 
have kept their ranks with even more fidelity than Marl- 
borough's veteran's did. 

After driving a good way, we came to a battlemented 
tower and adjoining house, which used to be the residence 
of the Ranger of Woodstock Park, who held charge of 
the property for the King before the Duke of Marlborough 
possessed it. The keeper opened the door for us, and in 
the entrance hall we found various things that had to do 
with the chase and woodland sports. We mounted the 
staircase, through several stories, up to the top of the 
tower, whence there was a view of the spires of Oxford, 
and of points much farther off, — very indistinctly seen, 
however, as is usually the case with the misty distances of 
England. Returning to the ground-floor, we were ushered 
into the room in which died Wilmot, the wicked Earl of 
Rochester, who was Ranger of the Park in Charles's time. 
It is a low and bare little room, with a window in front, 
and a smaller one behind ; and in the contiguous entrance- 
room there are the remains of an old bedstead, beneath the 
canopy of which, perhaps, Rochester may have made the 
penitent end that Bishop Burnet attributes to him. I 
hardly know what it is, in this poor fellow's character, 
which affects us with greater tenderness on his behalf than 



292 THE PALACE OF BLENHEIM 

for all the other profligates of his day, who seem to have 
been neither better nor worse than himself. I rather 
suspect that he had a human heart which never quite died 
out of him, and the warmth of which is still faintly per- 
ceptible amid the dissolute trash which he left behind. 

Methinks, if such good fortune ever befell a bookish 
man, I should choose this lodge for my own residence, with 
the topmost room of the tower for a study, and all the 
seclusion of cultivated wilderness beneath to ramble in. 
There being no such possibility, we drove on, catching 
glimpses of the palace in new points of view, and by and 
by came to Rosamond's Well. The particular tradition 
that connects Fair Rosamond with it is not now in my 
memory ; but if Rosamond ever lived and loved, and ever 
had her abode in the maze of Woodstock, it way well be 
believed that she and Henry sometimes sat beside this 
spring. It gushes out from a bank, through some old 
stone-work, and dashes its little cascade (about as abundant 
as one might turn out of a large pitcher) into a pool whence 
it steals away towards the lake, which is not far removed. 

Passing through a gateway on the opposite side of the 
quadrangle, we had before us the noble classic front of the 
palace, with its two projecting wings. We ascended the 
lofty steps of the portal, and were admitted into the en- 
trance-hall, the height of which, from floor to ceiling, is 
not much less than seventy feet, being the entire elevation 
of the edifice. The hall is lighted by windows in the up- 
per story, and it being a clear bright day, was very radiant 
with lofty sunshine, amid which a swallow was flitting to 



iM 



THE PALACE OF BLENHEIM 



393 



and fro. The ceiling was painted by Sir James Thornhill 
in some allegorical design (doubtless commemorative of 
Marlborough's victories) the purport of which I did not 
take the trouble to make out, — contenting myself with the 
general effect, which was most splendidly and effectively 
ornamental. 

We were guided through the show-rooms by a very civil 
person, who allowed us to take pretty much our own time 
in looking at the pictures. The collection is exceedingly 
valuable, — many of these works of Art having been pre- 
sented to the Grand Duke by the crowned heads of Eng- 
land or the Continent. One room was all aglow with pic- 
tures by Rubens ; and there were works of Raphael, and 
many other famous painters, any one of which would be 
sufficient to illustrate the meanest house that might contain 
it. I remember none of them, however (not being in a 
picture-seeing mood), so well as Vandyck's large and famil- 
iar picture of Charles I. on horseback, with a figure and 
face of melancholy dignity such as never by any other hand 
was put on canvas. 

After passing through the first suite of rooms, we were 
conducted through a corresponding suite on the opposite 
side of the entrance-hall. These latter apartments are 
most richly adorned with tapestries, wrought and presented 
to the first Duke by a sisterhood of Flemish nuns ; they 
look like great, glowing pictures, and completely cover the 
walls af the rooms. The designs purport to represent the 
Duke's battles and sieges ; and everywhere we see the hero 
himself, as large as life, and as gorgeous in scarlet and gold 



ng^ THE PALACE OF BLENHEIM 

as the holy sisters could make him, with a three-cornered 
hat and flowing wig, reining in his horse, and extending his 
leading-staff in the attitude of command. Next to Marl- 
borough, Prince Eugene is the most prominent figure. In 
the way of upholstery, there can never have been anything 
more magnificent than these tapestries ; and, considered as 
works of Art, they have quite as much merit as nine pic- 
tures out of ten. 

One whole wing of the palace is occupied by the library, 
a most noble room, with a vast perspective length from end 
to end. 

The next business was to see the private gardens. An 
old Scotch under-gardener admitted us and led the way, and 
seemed to have a fair prospect of earning the fee all by 
himself; but by and by another respectable Scotchman 
made his appearance and took us in charge, proving to be 
the head-gardener in person. He was extremely intelligent 
and agreeable, talking both scientifically and lovingly about 
trees and plants, of which there is every variety capable of 
English cultivation. Positively, the Garden of Eden can- 
not have been more beautiful than this private garden of 
Blenheim. It contains three hundred acres, and by the 
artificial circumlocution of the paths, and the undulations, 
and the skilfully interposed clumps of trees, is made to ap- 
pear limitless. The sylvan delights of a whole country 
are compressed into this space, as whole fields of Persian 
roses go to the concoction of an ounce of precious attar. 
The world within that garden-fence is not the same weary 
and dusty world with which we outside mortals are con- 



THE PALACE OF BLENHEIM 



395 



versant j it is a finer, lovelier, more harmonious Nature ; 
and the Great Mother lends herself kindly to the gardener's 
will, knowing that he will make evident the half-obliterated 
traits of her pristine and ideal beauty, and allow her to take 
all the credit and praise to herself. I doubt whether there 
is ever any winter within that precinct, — any clouds ex- 
cept the fleecy ones of summer. The sunshine that I saw 
there rests upon my recollection of it as if it were eternal. 
The lawns and glades are like the memory of places 
where one has wandered when first in love. 



iroF e 1003 



OCT 9 1901 



^^ 



LbJa'2^ 



